I just want to wake up from this awful dream, see you laying next to me and say “I had this awful dream you were gone and we were at your funeral.” You’d then hug me and say “I am right here and not going anywhere.” The dog will jump on the bed and give us kisses. And we’ll cuddle with no rush or place to be. Your bed comfortable, spacious. Ceilings tall. Lights soft with little rays of sunlight peeking in. It’s peaceful. Sweet. Safe.
I remind you how lucky we are and how happy I feel doing nothing right here with you.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Please just tell me it’s an awful dream. Please?
I’m in disbelief…
Disbelief that you are gone. That I will never hear from you again. That this world is now void of your magic. Your brilliance.
Just the other day I caught a whiff of the laundry smell that always reminds me of you.
Every now and again when the night sky is particularly clear, I look at the stars and I’m brought back to 2021 and to the desert with you.
You…
So wise. So talented. So charming. So… words can’t describe.
I feel numb. This truth is too much to bear.
Where are you now sweet soul? Where are you now?
I’m devastated.
I wish I could remind you every day of your light. I wish I could sit with you and solve any problem that felt like too much.
—
Now what? Now what from here?
—
How do we move forward knowing this truth? We are here and then one day, we are not. What’s all this for anyway? Why are we making this life so complicated when we could be loving, living, and loving and living, loving and living instead?
My heart. My heart aches. For you, my friend. For you, oh world. For me. For us. For all of it.
—
Be kind.
—
In loving memory of you.
Sit here awhile.
Crossed legged.
Face me.
Close your eyes.
Let your forehead rest gently against mine, the way it does when there is nowhere else to be.
Your hands settle on my thighs.
Mine find yours. Strong. Warm.
Come to rest. Be still a while.
And breathe. Just breathe.
No place to rush to for this moment.
For this moment, we can simply be.
We’ll sway. Softly. Almost imperceptibly.
And stay another while.
My hands move slowly up your sides…towards your chest…along your arms.
Learning what it’s like to know the shape of you.
Mmm.
Cheeks meet. Meld together. Lips lightly graze past.
Passion rises. It’s 100 degrees.
Breathe. Breathe.
Pause.
Rest.
Be here still.
Hold the love.
Feel yourself whole.
This year has felt like an initiation into genuine self love.
Loving my body deeply for what it does and for the miracle that it truly is.
I am looking at this lady I see reflected back at me in the mirror and I’m thinking “who is this??”
It’s wildly interesting to watch yourself shift like a butterfly. No trace of a caterpillar in sight.
Suddenly I am getting referrals for “mammograms” and “vaginal ultrasounds” like I’m a test subject. Inspecting my body in ways my youngster, party girl self is side eying like, “WTF?”
Yet, all fascinating.
I’m finding love for my womanhood.
For my cycles.
For women across generations and lifespans.
It’s a peculiar little process.
Last night I walked outside and was met with a magnificent starry night. The air, cool, crisp, fresh like clean linen. It carried a whiff of the year 2021. A whiff of you, freedom, and the sense of being carefree. A scent of that naive, childlike spirit I’ve held so dear. A trace of that grandiose feeling that everything and anything is possible! “I could conquer it all, and look cute doing it!” Ahhh… delightful!
But fast forward to now and I’m stacking up on supplements like the stores are going out of business and getting tired by like 2:00 P.M.
“WTF?” (side eye).
—
Anyway, aging is fun. (It’s not, help me… just kidding… not really).
There is something sweet, solid and wonderful about this wisdom and wrinkles I’ve gained. Suddenly, I’m into antiques, researching “NAD,” and gua sha.
There’s also a greater focus on security for me. I’m wanting to buy a house and some land. Cash, no rent or mortgages because don’t even get me started on how mortgages are a scam. I have major gripes with the housing system. (But that’s a topic for another day).
So let’s circle back to the point before I fall asleep on my supplements as I type this…
A message to me:
I’m proud of you. I love you for you, no matter what. Thank you for the privilege to experience life as you. It’s been a wild and wonderful ride. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
I want to find the person who feels like my whole world. Someone who makes me feel complete. As if everything else becomes optional because all I need and want is right here with you.
Anywhere with you feels perfect. Traffic? Perfect. The grocery store? Perfect. Walking down the same old street? Perfect.
Some might say “you have to find that in yourself” and sure, Carol, you’re probably right but after finding that in myself I’d love to find that with another too.
I think life feels better when shared. What is the point of having the whole world yet being alone?
—
Life has been such an interesting journey. This morning I was hiking in Idyllwild and for a moment could see fragments of my journey reflected in my minds eye like a movie. I recalled being a child in Brazil. I recalled arriving in the U.S and pretending to string English words together in the mirror. I flashbacked through my life up until this point, standing accomplished on 1900 elevation gain, resting against a rock next to a tall, chubby pine tree whose fine needles glowed elegantly in the sun. The air: cool, crisp, soft, silent. The view – magnificent. As I marveled at the scene I couldn’t help but feel this immense sense of awe for how far I’ve come. What a ride! What a privilege I’ve been given.
Thank you, life. Thank you.
Mmmm. Divine.
But where to from here?
—
Driving out into nature used to be my most favorite experience. Seeing the mountains would make me lose it. Obsessed. Enamored by God’s creations. I could linger forever. While this time around I still felt this sense of wonder, it was certainly dimmed. As if life is expecting something from me that I can’t get away from. Some unfinished business of sorts. Like a summons I keep ignoring. It’s as if this isn’t a season for wandering.
“You’ll be happier once you’ve answered the call.” That was the sense I received.
What call!?
It’s is as if life is asking me to become a different version of myself. It wants me focused. Productive. It wants me in service. But what service?
I feel painfully, yet wonderfully erratic. Volatile.
One day I have a carefully detailed plan, the next I am executing something completely different. It’s like I can’t be contained. I’m an artist. A lover. A dancer in the wind.
I know I want land and a home.
I also want to leave to Italy.
What really matters in the end anyway?
Lately I have been thinking perhaps: experiences.
A breadth and depth of experiences.
Health.
Freedom.
Awe.
Delight.
Magic.
Ahhhh….
Unleash me. Hold me.
I am hard to contain….
And I think I love that about me.
But anyway, back to this world I mentioned in the beginning.
I want it.
I want to just rest on your perfectly strong, warm, cozy shoulders.
You are home.
You are everything.
For a moment there I forgot who I was… like I had early amnesia except it looked more like being curled up in fetal position for hours and crying into my vanilla latte.
On the outside it looks great — sunny San Diego beach life, cozy cafes, bay walks, nature, books, clean sheets.
Inside? A tornado.
Yet, somehow, I lived through it.
As we approach the grand finale of the shit show that was 2025 I have nothing more to do than to bow to life for it’s elaborate, dramatic performance. “Namaste, bitch.” I am thoroughly surprised and speechless. Though I suppose not that speechless because here I am yapping about it.
I am very slowly starting to feel like myself again — a hopeless romantic, addicted to nostalgia and lost in the magic of life. I just want to drift away in unfettered abandon and land gently in the arms of a lover who may or may not exist but surely does in the cloud of my hopes.
Ahhh. Heaven.
Do you ever feel that? In love with someone you don’t even know yet?
Gahhh… whisk me away.
Anyway… I’ve been thinking some pretty negative thoughts and I don’t like it. I believe this has challenged my health a bit. Which is wild since this was the one thing I could say I had pretty dialed in and under control. But time is passing man. I just did my 37th lap around the sun. Whoa… who me!??
I don’t know how to be this woman I’m becoming. Who the heck is that staring at me in the mirror and where’d cute, little Laura go?
Now, suddenly I’m cranky and have the patience of a rabid raccoon.
But I am learning to love me. Not in an arrogant “I don’t need nobody” kind of way. Genuinely. Not a vain love. True love. Compassion. Fascination for the mere existence I’ve been given. I mean, I sort of always hovered around these themes — sometimes much much further away in the distance. But now I am moving closer to myself. Kindly. Unconditionally. Accepting my rhythm without judgment. Without rushing myself to some outcome. It’s still a messy project; a construction site with beams sticking out of the cracked foundation and unfinished wooden framing waiting patiently to be made into something stable. Solid. Complete.
Under construction…yep, that’s me.
Mmm…
Let’s rest here together as we contemplate love a little longer, shall we?
As we contemplate home.
I’ve been yearning for this sense of home, but not the kind that holds an address.
More a person who feels like home.
A person who feels like my whole world.
A bond so deep we don’t need much outside of each other.
Do you think that’s real? Does it exist?
I miss the younger version of me who was filled with enthusiasm and hope. She was chipper, adventurous and going after her dreams.
Now, I feel like a cynic.
Like I want to roll my eyes and scoff at everything. I’m annoyed at everything. So not enthused.
The other morning I went on a hike… normally hikes fill me with wonder. And maybe for a moment I felt a sense of awe but in 30 seconds it quickly faded…. meh.
My eyes open and I wish they didn’t.
“Here, again? Ugh.”
I have so much love for my human. It’s not her fault. I wish I could be better for her. And I want to be.
But this world feels so dense it’s like I’m walking through waist deep mud with a weighted vest.
Anyway. I don’t want to bring you down with my woes.
But I am tired of performing happiness and sometimes you just gotta share what’s real. And what’s real is that I am losing my patience. I don’t want to people please and be overly nice. I’m tired, angry, and cranky. So let’s get to the point.
“Rest in reality” she said, and as an avid dreamer that statement hit me like a ton of bricks, quite in the way reality usually does.
I like living in the clouds. Romanticizing all the little details. Takin’ my sweet ol’ time, ya know?
But lately reality has been hittin’ me hard. It’s reminding me “Sweetie, you’re in a body. On a planet. There are rules here. Laws here.”
And suddenly I wake from my twilight anesthesia, drowsy, confused, like “what?”
“Yep. Rules, baby rules” it reminds me.
Sigh.
Anyway.
Rest in reality. Now that’s something I’ve been resisting like the plague.
But I am learning. Learning that IT IS WHAT IT IS SOMETIMES.
Expectations don’t always match reality. Life sometimes will do it’s own thing no matter how damn hard you try. You don’t always get what you want. You WILL feel pain. You will lose. You will get rejected. Your dream might not come true.
Yes, life is beautiful. But also, it is not.
So I just want to take a moment to honor and acknowledge that.
I am learning to accept, and dare I say, love what is. But let’s not get too carried away. I’m definitely not at the “loving it” stage yet. Not even close. I am kind of sort of learning — ya know? It’s been kinda like trying to learn to walk a tightrope while juggling flaming baseball bats with a weighted vest. It’s a circus right now.
In all seriousness though, it is indeed a beautiful skill to develop. To hold the grief in solid wisdom, bow to life in respect and give it a kiss in the forehead in reverence and say “I understand. I accept.”
Because as my good friend Silvia would say, “It is what it is.”
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