XXXI

LOVING the black and white candid's Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist) is doing at the moment.

XXX

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

- Arundhati Roy

XXIX

Dear self - live the dream.

Hey, guess what, s***'s happening.

Hey, guess what, this is real life. Sometimes you don’t really consciously properly discerningly live in it. But this is it, and you’re a part of it.

It’s the real world now, where you have to make decisions, and have direction and vision, and know where you’re going, at least for the most part. You’re gonna make money and save money and spend money and save again and try to get ahead in the money game.

Hint: no one ever gets ahead in the money game.

Welcome to the real world, where sure, bad things happen. But when good things happen, they’re filled with enough… well, goodness… to last you all the way through the bad. Hopefully. That’s the dream.

And you’ve got the dream. You’re living in it! Don’t think just because every now and then you need to make some hard decisions and overcome some things, and maybe every now and then someone rubs you up the wrong way, or vice versa – don’t think that means your not living the dream. Because you are. And you’ll do well not to forget it.

This is called life. You’re a traveller passing through, and when you’re travelling its about living life to the full in every moment. So go on. Do that. And see what come out of it.

Live that dream. Even if you don’t know what it is quite yet… live it until you realise what you’re living.

XXVIII

Have you ever lost someone? Have you ever lost someone that you loved. How did you lose them, and did they stay lost or did the losing fix itself. Or did you fix it. Or did they.

Have you ever lost someone in more ways than one – physically, emotionally, mentally… they were lost. Does the loss compound across the different levels of consciousness? Or is it just the one thing. Loss. Does anybody know.

I lost someone once. I lost someone I loved. And I didn’t lose him to another woman, or to a new set of ideas, or to a dream or a lifestyle, or another place. It wasnt mentally or emotionally.

I lost him in the truest sense of the word. I lost him and there was nothing I could do about it. I lost him without the slightest trace of warning. Oh, the universe doesn’t often warn the soon-harbourerers of sorrow.

I lost him in the blink of an eye.

I lost my love. He was taken from me. And every day I miss him.

I lost my love.

And the one who took him, was you.

(Woman writing a letter to the drunk driver that killed her love)

XXVII

My 17 year old self wrote a list of 50 things she wanted to do before she was 18. That challenge was invariably extended to before 21, but nonetheless, a charming view into my own idealistic psyche. - S

50 THINGS

Suss out who your true friends are

Get a job

Do something completely spur-of-the-moment

Pull an all-nighter

Graduate high school

Get another piercing 

Visit a place that evokes childhood memories

Have a girls night/sleepover

Play in a children's playground

Go for a hike somewhere in the middle of nowhere

Get your P's

Watch the sun rise

Donate generously to charity

Go for a midnight/dawn walk

Enjoy the company of strangers

Give someone flowers for no reason

(Begin to) Learn another language

Write something meaningful

Visit somewhere new

Change someone's life

Read more 'classics'

Make a work of art

Reconnect with someone from the past

Cliff jump

Win something: a contest, a prize, an award, the lottery

Play the guitar

Play a practical joke on someone

Go on a road trip

Take a hairstyle risk

Knit something

Go kite flying

Go on an adventure. A real one.

Buy something really expensive with your own money

Carve your name in a tree somewhere special

Host a party

Volunteer for charity

Go on a boat/go sailing

Have a bonfire

Make pasta from scratch

Catch a fish and eat it 

Buy a homeless person lunch

Leave secret notes places

Go skiing/to the snow

Bake someone a cake, for a reason or for none

Fast for something, for some time

Be silent for a day

Give blood

Jump in the water fully clothed

Be in a food fight

Take lots and lots and lots of photos

XXVI

There are days when I can't write anything but things of you. You move me in a way that no other things do. How did I get here? How did I meet you? I feel a strange feeling that you knew it would happen all along.
I sit and I think and all my thoughts are caught up on you. You're… you're… So much of me preoccupied with something I have no words to speak of. Words are failing me. Words never fail me.

I just want to see you. Again and again and again. See you and know you and love you and know you more. Again and again and again and again.

(Image: Grace Loves Lace)

XXV

Part II.

At the macro level, life is a beautiful, and heady, and overwhelming thing, Yes, again, beautiful and heady and overwhelming. My sister is not happy with her life, I want to show her it can be all she want’s it to be and more. My brother is starting out on a new chapter, in love, and in the way he considers himself, and I am so so proud of him. My husband-to-be is the man of my dreams, and he is passionate about his work and nothing could make me happier. His days are a rollercoaster of deals done, deals falling through, negotiations, wins and losses, but the ultimate consensus is: ‘Yes, my life is meaningful’. My best friend lives in another city and though it’s an always-struggle and an often-aching-heart, she is doing things she could only dream of doing and I am beyond proud of her aweing resilience.

I am happy. For I have every reason to be. And today it is raining and my heart is breaking with the fullness of life, and the fullness of love, and the grandeur of these moments through which we live. Life is beautiful, and heady, and overwhelming, and we’re living it. All of us. 

(Images: Matt Wisniewski)