holy cupcake!

there are days when i feel like i'm actually regressing. moving backwards. undoing any progress in an upward and positive direction for my life.

but for every ten of those days, there's one where i manage to make a batch of cupcakes for a cast picnic. i (1) finish said cupcakes a full day in advance. (2) the frosting does not get everywhere, as it has in the past. and (3) i do all of this in high altitude {which, need i remind you, i am less than unaccustomed to}.

and i think to myself, kid, you're doing just fine.

okay.

i have arrived in utah where i will be for the next three months.

right now three months seems like an interminable amount of time to spend in a place where i don't really know anyone. in a room that feels awfully tiny, awfully white, and awfully far from home.

but the mountains are large and green and one feels like they might just reach out their hand and actually touch them.

so i'll let the mountains do their work on me. and i'll be okay.

even if i have to cry a bit along the way.

like yesterday. on the plane. because i don't know that i've ever been so frightened. or felt so far away from what i had once imagined for my life.

or like today. because i miss my parents (and some really darn good tex-mex food).

but parents (and lupe's) will be in texas when i return in september.

and new york will be on the cusp of autumn when i finally make it back.

and who knows where life will be. and that's the exciting part, right?

this chapter.

i've been thinking a lot about what i might call this period of my life when i look back on it in twenty years.

(because this is the kind of thing one must think about. {obviously}.)

and i have decided, after much consideration, that it shall be called:

the period in which i learn to blow air through my lips in all directions and manners of fashion as an attempt to keep myself calm.

(and find that alone to be completely insufficient. {obviously}.)

just ahead.

i went to see someone.

just the other day.

about my... future.

and at the end of our time together she looked at me and said, you have a beautiful life ahead of you.

and never have more comforting words been spoken.

a beautiful life.

she didn't say successful, or happy. contented or lucky.

but beautiful.

and that was just the word i needed to hear.

happy.

before you read: this post

is really a continuation of this.

i'm sitting in the kitchen now.

it's cool in here. spring air kissing the countertops.

i'm waiting for my water to boil. for pasta. i'm having pasta. with a little oil, cheese, and avocado.

and i'm happy today.

can you believe that? that i'm actually happy today? isn't that just so perfect and ridiculous and funny, and so exactly the way life is.

do you know the greatest cause of pain is the avoidance of it--the railing against, the attempt not to feel it.

i awoke this morning feeling lighter. because i was honest. with him. with myself. and compassionate towards the two of us and towards whatever tenuous thing we had created.

i liked who i was when i was around him. that's how it began. that was the first feeling. he created a space in which i felt comfortable to assert my independence and confidence. to be sexy and light. and attempt humor. he quieted my mind.

i made so many mistakes along the way. misinterpreted so many comments. expected so much.

but today i feel again like the person i was when all of this began. like the person he allowed me to be. (i have to remember to thank him for this).

only today do i understand what it is he wanted. and oh how i'd like to go back, retrace my steps, and try again.

ah, life!

i'm chuckling as i write this. because this is life. and i'm finally finding my head above the water long enough to laugh about it.