First of all...

I am discovering, of late, that I have to idea what I think. I am beginning to realize what a privilege that discovery is. 

I think back to when I was a teenager, and I was so sure. I just knew. And it was terrible.

The further I go into this life I am creating, the more exciting I find the unknown. I went to the grocery store by myself in my new neighborhood for the first time, and it was a freaking ADVENTURE. I found a store that sells the most gloriously useless furniture, saw some amusingly poorly translated signs, met a puppy, got caught singing to myself by a man carrying a window (and when I looked embarrassed he burst into song, too), and discovered no less than 5 new kinds of cheese. GOING TO THE GROCERY STORE.

And that's the wonderful thing about all of this. I've been living for just long enough to think I know the world, know my profession, know myself. And then life happened. And I can receive it.

This is why change is so important. 

And that is the thing I am most proud of, the growth I most celebrate: That I see change, discomfort, even failure, as experience, as learning, as growth. I have not always lived like this. Some people never will.

This understanding has also been allowing me to have conversations I never would've had. Some of these conversations are with strangers (my downstairs neighbor just pranked a friend by throwing a handful of firecrackers into said friend's shower), with colleagues (new teaching techniques!!!), and with the people I love. I had a really important conversation with an old friend (whom I probably would've lost otherwise) that was the most uncomfortable ten minutes I've had in a long while. You know what we said? We said, "You hurt me." We said, "I'm sorry."

AH. How painful. How difficult. How healing.

So that's my project for now. To experience with open eyes and ears and mind and heart. To analyze honestly, and to allow myself to feel whatever comes from that.

And that, I think, might be work enough for a lifetime.