I don't want to be afraid to do anything. Ever.

But sometimes I am.

There's so much coming my way this year: good and bad and everything in between. My life takes a permanent change after this year. It's so much different than high school, where I graduated and moved on to more schooling. Now I'm supposed to move onto the Big Life and Careers and Marriage and somehow turn out successful in it all... It's this gigantic vortex of unknown that keeps getting harder and harder to plan ahead for.

The solution to the change is pretty easy. It's what I've always done before: follow my heart, trust my impulses, and let the rest of the chips fall as they may. But I still get completely wound up in the anticipation of what's to come sometimes, and all the things I can't plan for seem too big too process. It feels kind of like taking a giant inhale of air, capturing it in my lungs and weighing it with my feelings before letting it all out at once in one great gust. And I guess that's all it is, really—moving forward. One giant breath, letting it out, and then taking another... pulling in all the positive and releasing all the negative again and again.

Now if I could just invent some outlet to channel all this pent-up anticipation before it corrodes my brain.

A woman stopped me in the parking lot on my way into Fresh Market today. She was halfway to the store herself, pushing a cart that was making a god-awful amount of noise. When she caught sight of me, she stopped, and asked if I would take the cart inside for her. "I'm just too lazy," she said. I shrugged, took it from her, and kept walking. I just assumed that she had mistakenly thought I was an employee or something on accident. I took the cart inside, grabbed what I needed and left.

Twenty minutes later, I'm across the street in the main lobby of Publix (where I can actually afford to buy groceries), desperately trying to pry a cart away from the rest with absolutely no success. As all mature, functioning adults of society would, I got pissed off and gave the cart I was trying to remove a really good kick. It shook, rattled, and then... nothing happened. Whoa, shocker there! I was just about to do something really drastic and most likely embarrassing when a man coming out of the store said, "Here, take this one." He unloaded his three (literally, I counted) items out of the cart and rolled it toward me.

It was such a simple equation: help someone, someone helps you.

Consideration for today: "What is it that makes you happy?"

It sounds like a stupid question. The average person can usually fish a generic answer out of their butt, like "laughter" or "good sex" or "chocolate cake," and they're passable answers, but they avoid delving into the deeper edge of just what makes them, as an individual, spark from the inside out. They lack the detail, the why and how. When we're kids, everything is new, so discovering what makes our hearts content is a natural curiosity we write off as growing up. Once we're grown, we stop questioning, we get bogged down under frivolous fears, house chores, heartbreak, diets, jobs we hate, and guilt, and just like that, our vision of the world shifts.

I see most of the world mourn that loss without realizing it. They're always too busy to notice the person they began as slipping away. The shift happens too gradually, like water smoothing over stone. They change from boulders to pebbles, no less significant, smoother and more attractive, but lacking the grandeur of the world tucked into their memories. They look back at the best time of their lives as something lost, something that went away, when no loss occurred at all outside of a few simple changes.

When I was a kid, I loved being outside. I liked catching things: bugs, fish, lizards, butterflies, because once I caught them, I could get up close and see the details. I liked little things, like Barbie shoes and earrings and tiny figurines. My favorite meals were anything consisting of pasta and some type of cheese. I loved being with my parents. Making my friends laugh was a sense of pride for me. I really enjoyed coloring books. All these things made me happy.

I still love nature: national parks; the way the rain sounds at my parent's house, drumming down on the skylights and filtering through the branches; the organic shapes and textures it produces, bird sketches, and the patterns that comprise birch bark; cold, crisp winter days; fresh tangerines. I love exploring and photographing new places, the process of putting my make-up on, the smell of paperback novels, eating raw cookie dough and feeling the way the sugar grits in my teeth. Wet paint all over my hands, dripping, bright and wet. Gemstones, moonlight, reading in the bath. Fantasy stories, the cat curled up against me when I wake up during a nap, hardwood floors, victorian accents, laughing at my Dad's puns and corny jokes and the way my Mom absentmindedly pets me while I'm close to her. Imogen Heap's voice, British accents, spaghetti, the way my car adjusts the volume with my speed. Attending an art college where your professors constantly reinforce that if you're not doing what you love, you're not doing anything at all. Typography: serifs, old style, the font Georgia, perfect kerning that sings right off the page. My best friends, the way we lose our filters when we're together and share the real things, the true things, swapping stories and making memories that will become the stories of our lives when we're at the end. Bokeh, fruit juice, earrings, eyelashes, trinkets, antique postcards, and art prints. These all equate to my definition of happiness; this is what it is that makes me happy.

It's raining so hard right now. Pouring. It's such a lulling sound, like ocean waves right against my second story window. Some part of me just wants to wrap myself up in it---to keep this storm as close to me as possible. I love the rain; I don't think I'll ever stop loving it.

I went to see the psychic this week. I intended to write up a large post on how it went and what I was told, but I've changed my mind. I think that outside of my closest friends, what I was told was personal, and that somehow by placing it here, it takes some of the mysticism away. I will say, however, that it was a very intriguing experience, and anyone interested should do it at least once in their lives. Go when it feels right---when you feel like you should go. There's probably something the universe needs to tell you.

My favorite part about the experience is that it makes you think, makes you think about all the decisions lying in front of you. You can change what you're told so easily: just turn left instead of right. But will you? If you always turn right, you're going to keep turning right, even if someone else tells you that it might bring something you might not expect. That's the point of life, isn't it? These experiences, picking and choosing what fits uniquely to you. The comforting part is that I liked almost everything she told me. I liked what she told me because they sounded like my decisions. The things she predicted made sense to me; they were warm and comforting like forgotten friends, and even if they don't come true---that's completely ok because what does come true is what I need in that moment.

Lately I've been thinking that when you're young, you're looking at the whole world waiting on your life to start, and by the time it finds you, you're old and wondering where it went. I think people tend to forget that life doesn't find you, you find it: create it, shape it, form it, and every piece of the puzzle is up to you. Your choices, your world. It almost doesn't seem possible; how can something so grand be so simple?

I'm rambling on now. I blame it on the rain. The sound is distracting me.

I haven't forgotten my epic Maine adventure post. The file is still sitting on my desktop, waiting patiently. It just needs some photographs and some editing and it'll be posted, no worries.

Being on vacation has given me time to do exactly what a Kades does best: think.

The future has really been stressing me out this month; the drive to be successful has settled like a strand of thorns somewhere just underneath my shoulder-blades. I don't want to screw this thing called my life up. And I know if I walk into it confidently, start this year off the right way, and really give everything my full one hundred and ten percent, I'll be fine. Better than fine, probably. But I worry about stretching myself too thin. I think I might be trying to accomplish too much too fast---like I'm speeding my life up faster than it should be going---but I'm terrified of being left behind. I want (need) those internships. I want to get my feet wet in this career and make sure I'm really in this for the long run. And more than anything, I want to make sure I'm at the top of the competition. I don't even have to be winning---but I better as hell be at the top. There's no reason not to be, because I've got this. I've so, so, so got this.

I need to make sure I spend more time putting effort into my portfolio and less time putting effort into my night-soon-to-be-day job. When I send out the applications for these internships (and future job opportunities), I want my portfolio to say everything about me. I want my typography to speak for itself, my feminine charms to be hidden in the photography, my creative juices to leak out of my hand made elements. I want that portfolio to be a superstar. It's going to be a lot of work. A lot of work.

Going into this summer, I had pretty low hopes. I thought it was going to suck ass. But it didn't defeat me (at least, it hasn't yet). Living alone? I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Working the entire summer? Paid off the rest of my trip, a few gifts to myself, and a good start for my Lacoste fund---not to mention some great memories with some great people. Not getting a trip? If I want to do something, I'm gonna do it, no matter who tries to stand in my way; Maine, I cannot wait to meet you. Missing my friends? Only means more love-notes and can't-wait-to-see-you's which can never be bad, truthfully.

My chest is sunburned, my hair's too short and my bangs too choppy, my skin smells like chlorine, and there are still little grains of sand stuck to the inside of my knees, but I can't complain---I love it. Everything works out, little by little. And my life? It's going to work out... little by little, just the way I like it.