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?
“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.”
It feels like I’ve time traveled and landed in a parallel universe.
I’m numb and in awe.
It’s you, but it’s not you.
Like I’m in a dream.
You’re picking me up in an 80’s Cadillac, no seat belt. Holding the door like a gentleman.
The speedometer trembling to keep up. A dream catcher hanging from your windshield mirror. The lights on the road, purple. It’s as if I’m in a film. I’m again reminded of the magic. The moments of whimsey my heart lives for. The words coming out of your mouth; strangely familiar. Like you traveled from another timeline, except it’s not really you. Just the semblance.
Today you put a watch on my wrist. Like he put a bracelet. It’s like I was re-living the past in a warped reality where time was outside of time. As if dimensions had been collapsed together and I’ve been brought back here with you, except it’s not you. We drove past a store with his name written on it. What? His name.But not him. You. This moment, this car…
“Am I dreaming?”
Some moments in life are so unpredictable. So magical. It reminds me what I live for.
One moment we’re exchanging glances. The next we’re kissing in your bedroom in the dark.
—
On the surface I’m ok, but underneath there is a volcano.
I’m afraid of closeness. Like once you know me it won’t be the same.
And vice versa. Once I know you, maybe it won’t be the same.
—
The roads here make me nostalgic. If there is one word that captures the timbre of my soul, that one is probably it.
Anyway, this weird abstract message is all I have for today. It’s all been so weird lately.
—
I think I want a husband.
Every now and then, God seems to send me little surprises. Winks that whisper, “I’m still here. I’m still watching you. I’m listening. I care.”
Like today, when there was an unexpected knock on my door.
In this world, people rarely knock unannounced so obviously I was filled with curiosity, “Who could that be?”
I peeked through the window and saw her—my upstairs neighbor’s mother who’s been visiting for the month to help her daughter. My neighbor is from Brazil, like me, which is something that has bonded us in a tender way. Her mother is a small woman. Her round frame carrying the kind of softness that makes you instantly think of comfort food and unconditional love. The kind of figure that reminds me of an Italian nonna, only in this case, a Brazilian mãe.
She was beaming, holding up a blue-lidded Tupperware like a trophy. Inside: a generous slice of carrot cake covered in glossy brigadeiro icing, our national chocolate treasure. The sight alone felt like home.
Her gesture was so simple, yet it landed in my heart like a divine reminder: You are not forgotten. Not by God, not by humanity, not by life itself. At least that’s the story I chose to believe. And it’s far better than the other one where miracles have dried up and the heavens have turned away.
Because the truth is, life can be unbearably dark sometimes. Heavy enough to crush and test my faith. But then, in moments like this, an old-fashioned knock at the door, a motherly smile, a Tupperware of sweetness…I find myself believing again.
So when in doubt, choose kindness.
I can only imagine her pain…
Someone I know who I was recently smiling and taking selfies at the park with has lost her 17 year old daughter in a tragic car accident. How could we ever have predicted this moment 2 weeks ago. Don’t you wish you could turn back time and change things? Change outcomes?
GAH. The ache.
I’ve been sitting deeply with this topic of impermanence. The passage of time. Death.
I’ve come here to this space to share about it with you a few times.
Because friends, you and I are already dead.
Time and space is just catching up.
Why aren’t we talking about this loudly and wildly? Why are we walking around like zombies taking this whole experience for granted? Taking it all too serious.
Why are our systems not serving us? Why are we turning housing into a commodity to the point we labor just to generate PAPER for a structure that is already created to feed a system that is keeping our energy in survival mode?
WHY AREN’T WE USING OUR ENERGY TO CREATE HEAVEN ON EARTH?
Why aren’t we thinking about how we actually want to contribute to the planet to make it an epic experience vs how can I just make money?
Why aren’t we asking the big questions and solving the big problems?
Why aren’t we doing work that MAKES SENSE for the sake of having a WORLD WE WANT TO WAKE UP TO EACH DAY and contribute to?
YOU AND I ARE GOING TO DIE.
We need to wake up each day as if it were our last. Love like it was the last time. Enjoy our meal like it was the last. BECAUSE IT MAY VERY WILL BE.
Love. Forgive. Give. Help. Be kind. Be good. Make the art. Write the book. Post the content. Heal.
Leave the world better than you found it. It’s up to you and me. No one else.
No. Don’t point the finger at anyone else. YOU be good. You be kind. You do the right thing. ME be good. ME be kind. ME do the right thing. And if we each do this, we will see the ripple effect.
Ask questions.
Make noise. Don’t just PAY MORE RENT. Say NO to rental increases. Say NO to injustice.
—
Anyway.
That is my venting my own pain.
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