Our Short Trip to Sequoia

I never thought I'd be someone who truly worries about their age. I always felt older than my years growing up and it felt good not to blend into the youth and childish habits of the people around me. In two days I'm turning twenty-three. For some reason, that number sounds foreign to me. Even just typing this, a small pit in my stomach is weighing me down. I felt like I was forever twenty-two. This past year was definitely the biggest year of my life. That says a lot because so many of my years recently felt like the biggest year of my life. So much has happened and I think that's what scares me the most because it doesn't feel like life is slowing down, it just seems to keep speeding up. Every single day and every single month is just so significant and although I've had great years they're also really hard. I'm just scared that one year it's going to be too hard and then I'll wake up and look back and realize there's no more time to be scared because I'm a grown up and I'm not a little kid and life has to keep on going. Whether this year is hard or easy or emotional, I have to keep going and I think that idea is really scary.

I feel like for so much of my life similar habits and consequences were consistently following me through my years and it wasn't until this past year that I really recognized them. So now within that recognition I found things I needed to work on and change and progress and it just keeps adding up and it feels like I don't have enough time to perfect myself and my mistakes and progress. And I'm afraid of all the things I'll learn about myself and my life this next year and where that's going to bring me and whether or not I'll have time to truly understand it and focus and progress it and myself. I think it's very natural but very true for someone who is driven to want more time to perfect the drive. There's so much I'm doing now that I just wish I had done sooner. It just wasn't the right time before. And it's now time to focus on what I'm focusing on and in a year whatever I'm focusing on then, will be the time I'm meant to focus on that. It's just so difficult not knowing what's to come and understanding that I don't have control of everything while still attempting to control myself. 

I'm in a better state of mind today. I'm always in a better state of mind when I'm able to write about things or talk about things or speak at all. Lately I've had so many conversations in my head but I don't think I've truly spoken to anyone about anything. Shay met my brother two days ago. That was big but not as big as it would have been two years ago which was a sign to me of progression. Small things aren't as big as they used to be. I've learned to focus my energy on more reasonable things. But I still slip and focus too much energy on things that were never meant to get any thought at all. We drove to Sequoia yesterday. We were miserable for four hours and then arrived to a fight and had to drive back. That sounds so negative but it was so positive. On the way back down the mountain we drove past baby deer walking on the road. Then just around one of the winding curves was a big rock and as I drove, with my terrible eyes I swore I saw a bear. In the midst of our chaos, Shay thought I was insane but I was determined. I've been so much better at giving myself what I need. I needed to go yesterday and I needed to turn that car around and make sure I saw what I saw. So I did. And we turned around and for those five minutes, we lulled in the car and rolled down the window and saw three bears just hanging out and looking back at us. Two little black bears and a brown bear. Right there. Right in front of us. We didn't even make it to the top of the mountain, we didn't see any of those gorgeous gigantic trees. But in five minutes of me listening to my gut, we saw something beautiful. Teary eyes and a nap later, I woke up in the car and Shay held my hand and we reminisced with simple smiles about the bears. It's always been easy with him. He let's me feel. And he sees what I see. 

So we may not have had the typical trip but we had a trip that was entirely perfect in our own way. Everything we do is atypical. We're not the average couple. He's not the average guy and I'm not the average human but we're perfect and I'm grateful to have met someone who likes me for the truest form of my being. 

Twenty-three. What do you have in store for me?