When lightning strikes

After drinking decaf and committing to tea for awhile, I’m back in the honeymoon phase with coffee whereby I still feel like I am struck by lightning half way through my cold brew with cream (the warm weather drink that I am hanging onto while we finally experience summer in San Francisco). I have thoughts going in a million different inspired directions right now, but I’ll focus in now on the pursuit of living. My last essay was about reckoning with my curiosities instead of the “shoulds” that I have been programmed with most of my life. This one is about starting the journey of following them, deeply, passionately, and maybe even to the ends of the earth. I’m in pursuit of a life that gives me that lightning bolt feeling that coffee does. In a group chat today, one friend shared a bucket list as her declaration to LIVE after loss. Last night, my boyfriend and I talked last night about the disparity between dreaming of a big life versus living one. Let this essay be an exploration of what it means for me to live fully right now and hopefully forever.

Lately, I’ve been struck with the idea that my life is like so many others, an idea that sort of haunts me and one that feels contrary to the narrative I’ve always believed - that I am destined for great things and have all of these passions and dreams that differentiate me. I recognize that this notion at best is filled with extreme privilege and at worst makes me sound like an ego maniac, but I think (or am hopeful) that other people feel this way, too. The revelation was a result of that aforementioned disparity, a realization that the dreams and passions that feel engrained into my identity live only in my head, separate from life I am currently living - a life that feels safe: I work a standard 9-5 job, I grapple with understanding myself and my relationships as a 20-something, I live in a city close to where I grew up, and I don’t do anything particularly extraordinary. On the flip side, my life is also comfortable and so sweet: I live in my dream apartment that I hope to rent until I’m 80, I am a member of a community garden, I have a dog named Rigatoni who is absolutely my familiar, I have the most loving, I talk to my parents every day and am an active part of my brother and sister-in-law’s life, I know my neighbors, I have hobbies and interests that bring me sparks of joy.

Both sides are deeply important.

I firmly believe that the little things - like seeing a hawk on my morning walk or shoving my nose into a rose to literally stop and smell the roses - are so much of what make life extraordinary. These are the things that fill my gratitude lists and make me dance around my home. This is not to discount these, this is to give thanks that I already feel abundant in the small moments that make life feel big.

But I also believe that there is also an element of boldness that separates ordinary from extraordinary. That looks different for everyone. Boldness for me (right now) looks like putting art into the world, starting a dream business, living a life designed intentionally around freedom, traveling a LOT and absorbing cultures like a little sponge, creating something that touches and engages with peoples’ hearts. If the little things are threads, boldness is an outfit. My coach recently described me as “risk-averse”. I was planning to list the risks I have taken here, but came up short beyond studying abroad (LOL) or starting a fashion blog when I was 16 that doesn’t exist today. My coach ended our session by asking me, “What would being bold look like?”

While in the midst of my morning lightning bolt strike, I wrote a list of things to answer that question, including a list of careers and life goals. These are the things that feel BOLD.

The items on my jobs list are not listings you can find on LinkedIn (trust me, I’ve searched!!). They are paths that lived as mere ideas in my mind, yet are a part of what I always envisioned would make my life extraordinary. There is so much rhetoric about how your job doesn’t need to be your purpose, how it can just be a means to an end, and it can be. However, it’s also most of how we spend our days. And I’d like mine to feel extraordinary.

COFFEE SHOP remains at the top of my list and it has been since I was a teenager. It feels scary to write that. The thoughts in my brain range from protective (what if someone does it first? better?) to terrified (what if I let myself down by doing this and failing or worse, by never doing it at all?). Silly maybe, but I’m sharing because that’s where I’m at.

I’m also including the current evolution (allowing space for it to grow and change as I do) of my life goals list below in hopes it will inspire you to make your own or hold me accountable to living mine. These are what I currently feel called to in order to give my life a little pizazz, to align the version of myself that lives in my head and the version who is living.

While someone who jumps out of planes for a living (notice that activity did not make the cut) may think this is child’s play, this is the current state of my boldness. Everything on my lightning bolt lists feel at once exhilarating, yet also soft and warm, like they are melting into a puddle into the rest of my being. It’s the feeling of alignment, pushing at and beyond my growth edge.