five years ago, five years later + the space somewhere in between.

Yesterday was my half birthday. Twenty-five and a half, I turned. Spending most of the day in a dark nursery trying to ward off vomiting from the pain of a migraine I acquired when Starbucks incorrectly made me a decaf macchiato {addicted to caffeine, much?} by responding insanely quick to every alarm and crying baby, every moment in between each silencing maneuver was spent with my eyes closed thinking about what twenty-five-and-a-half means to me. 

If you would have asked me five years ago where I saw myself, galavanting around the universe with absolutely no stability to speak of would not have been a glimmer in my dreams. I was fairly certain when I was twenty that I was going to marry my high school sweetheart right out of college, buy a fixer-upper in southwest Florida, have at least one child by now and spend every boring moment wondering what life would be like if I wouldn't have settled too young. 

One month after my twentieth birthday, that dream died when we broke up at a Fray concert on Halloween... and my newfound freedom set fire to a paradigm shift that inspired me to dream as big as the sun... and never turn back, never slow down and most certainly never stop dreaming. Ever. Not even when the sun sinks behind a beautiful cascade of snow capped mountains that line the ocean. Not. even. then.

When people ask me where I see myself in five years now, my heart sinks in to my stomach, my hands immediately clam + I always sigh, "I don't have a clue." ... which usually escalates into an anxiety-stricken conversation discussing what cities I'm drawn to, what would make me stay in Seattle and my least favourite question... Where is home? 

Sometimes, in this moment, I try to channel my twelve-year-old self... that innocence of a child who doesn't know the pain of heartbreak or the stress of financial obligations or the cruelness that you will inevitably encounter in the real world... and I begin to dream in living color. 

In this moment, I know exactly where I want to be in five years. I want to have the chance of spending the rest of my life with that someone. I want a solitaire diamond, a poofy white dress + one hell of a honeymoon. I want a career I enjoy that holds a tremendous amount of meaning in the hours I am there but that I do not spend a lot of hours doing. I want to own a quiet home with beautiful kitchen cupboards and a tree swing in the front yard. I want to nurture a newborn, over + over again, and to establish family traditions. I want a savings account, a daily routine and to frequent a local coffee house so often that the baristas know my order and how to correctly spell my name. I think I want to be settled. 

The paradigms have shifted again and here I stand... somewhere in between knowing exactly what I want and actually attaining it... dreaming just as wildly but on a much smaller scale. They are simpler dreams but they hold more meaning to me than the moon.  Sweet dreams.