Sometimes my eyelids just look at chocolate, gain 100 pounds, and beg me to let them fall down heavy. Most of the time I do. But sometimes I make them stay open, so I can see words onto the page.
I've been doing A LOT of writing. Unfortunately, most of it doesn't find it's way into this blog. More on why later. In the meantime, here's an update on things in New York, while I've got my own attention.
I'm coming up on ONE YEAR in NEW YORK CITY.
That still sounds weird.
October is my favorite year, err month, for a million different reasons. Mostly involving the saturation of colors and football, of friends and food. My first October in the city was certainly no exception.
I felt like the luckiest boy in the world to have 8 friends visit in October. If you visited, please don't let that number diminish the fact that you were here. After all, you are my favorite.
I'm ever thankful for the memories we were able to share:
We ate apples in the Big Apple. We ate sushi while the sun went down and the lights came up. We were old friends with new perspectives. Our feet carried us to new places together, while our hearts traveled even further. We rooted for the Vols, and finally saw some signs of hope. We stayed up late and talked for hours, often without any words. We ran together, we ate together, we played with each other's hair.
Our hearts were always warm even when the autumn breeze grew cool. We looked at each other and saw further than yesterday. We picked up exactly where we'd left off.
Each time a visitor comes, it feels like home has been rebuilt on a new piece of earth. And each time they leave, a bulldozer makes new tracks. It's a good kind of change. One that reminds me of all the wonderful relationships I am incredibly lucky to have. And the hole life punches in my heart whenever they say goodbye keeps me alive. It keeps me loving, keeps me feeling, it keeps me praying.
Besides my wonderful visitors, I've also been focusing on investing in myself.
I was quite an unnecessarily busy-bee when living in Nashville, and I'm not afraid to say that I've finally slowed down to a more manageable pace. Well, of course I'm afraid to say it. Keeping up with the Joneses is a tiring yet addicting sport.
Whenever I tell people my life has slowed down by moving to New York, they never fail to laugh in my face. But that's still better than a sneeze in the face. Regardless, it's true. Ever since I wrote about NYC being my wilderness, I've known slowing down was a part of my purpose here. It's hard to be self-aware and intentional about your life until you kick the busyness to the curb. My swing of a kick carried me all the way to New England. To a place where I could be still in the midst of eight million moving bodies. It has allowed me to just observe, both outwardly and inwardly. To really take a look at myself, who I am. Who I want to be. Who I want to be surrounded by. And that has made a world of difference.
One year later, I'm slowly changing my internal conversations from controlling outcomes by doing more things TO trusting outcomes through faith. After all, I've had quite a bit of help to be sitting right here.
Now in an effort to follow my heart, I AM TAKING WRITING CLASSES this year for the very first time. Sorry, I got a little excited. I've been writing a lot as a part of this journey, but most of it finds its life as fiction, not really fitting in on here. But, fingers crossed the words will make it out of google docs and into a printed form sometime next year. And if I find the courage somewhere down near my toenails, I just may share a little on here.
Until next time... love y'all. Love each other.