"explore. dream. discover."

The last time I'd checked, it was March 11.


Then I was on a hotel rooftop skybar in San Diego, looking out over the city lights, sipping the best champagne I've ever had.

Later I was lying on a black sand beach in La Jolla as we laughed at the unexpected nudists strolling by while we drank Coronas and ate girl scout cookies. Thin Mints and Do-si-dos.

Then I was on a boat in Newport Beach Harbor at sunset, motoring our way to a fancy seafood restaurant.

Some time later I woke up in a big soft hotel bed and had breakfast- cranberry bagels, bananas, juice, and chamomile tea, on a balcony overlooking the ocean in my own little Santa Barbara.

The next day kickball started and I had my fingers crossed for a good team, that my foreign friends would do well, that I would make a good catch and have great kicks and that we'd make a bunch of fun friends. It all happened, even better than I imagined.

Then this one day we all wore green and I drank cider and had veggie pizza with some of my best friends and we traipsed about town, and the night ended as I sat under the stars with someone who hadn't let go of my hand since he'd met up with us and there were whispers in my ear of how beautiful and classy I looked and how funny I am...

A day or two later we said goodbye after a beachside wine tasting and spell in the hot tub. I drove away. And then

I woke up in Pacific Grove. With my mom, sister, aunts, Grandma... and other women who have watched me grow up. We hug repeatedly and we save each other spots at lunch. I greeted the day with a run; following the wooden boardwalk through the white sand dunes and between the cypress trees, and down to the fine soft sand on the beach, scrambling over rocks and jumping over rivulets, the beat of the turquoise ocean loud through my ipod earphones, and it was so amazing and I was so happy to just BE that I had to run with both arms open wide. Laughing.

I just looked at the calendar and it's March 24. How did that happen?

Sometime in the dark dark night as I journeyed the 101 north I was on the phone to my sister, I sat in my little car cocoon and she on a log near a bonfire on the beach that awaited me. I wondered to her, "Is this my real life? Doesn't it sound outrageous? Or is it a dream, like my friend Nick says..."

It is my real life, for now. It's okay for life to be this crazy, this fun, this dreamlike. It's not without it's tears and insomnia and stress and awful pollen allergies.
But mostly everything altogether is adventurous and lovely and I am not taking one second for granted.