This week my friend Kim and I learned that a fellow Longhorn died. While we didn’t know him, he had taken over the role that we once held in the environmental group we were involved in during our time at the university.  There’s a wave of sadness for a lost of a young life, and then there’s a this tiny guilt for being alive but mostly wondering of am I living life to the fullest?

I’ve been talking with another good friend, who keeps emphasizing the power of now. While I haven’t read the book, it has me thinking about how I should enjoy all the experiences around me. To wonder and to ask questions. To open to the positive but not waste breath on the petty. Because you don’t know when you’ll get to experience something again nor will you be happy if you aren’t at peace with yourself.

Luckily since I’ve moved to New York, I’ve forced myself to adopt that kind of mentality because I knew if I didn’t do it now, I never would make it in this city. I’m creating new routines, rebuilding myself to a different lifestyle and making new friends. Slowly, but surely, I’m also restructuring my broken insides. Yes, after so long I admit even now the pieces aren’t all put together, but with each person I am able to open myself to, I’m learning more about who I am and shaping myself to the better person I will be.

To live life to the fullest doesn’t mean changing who I am. It means to not settle for less, to not limit my possibilities. I am ready for anything now.

Why are we scaredy cats? What makes us not say what we want to say? What makes us never share how we feel? Why haven’t we gone to the places we want to visit? Why aren’t we doing what we want to do? When did we sacrifice this luxury of choice?

What do I do where all my time vanishes, and nothing is accomplished…

As a girl from Texas unaccustomed to a “real winter”, I find it magical sitting inside the office and watching the large flakes graze the building. This winter in New York is apparently a more brutal one, and I battled out another snowstorm tonight by going with my friend to a 20-something-year-old happy hour. Unfortunately, most people decided not to battle it out, but we still had a pretty good night chatting in this small group and making new friends with a girl who is a sorority sister of my best friend who’s getting married (small world!).

When you surface from the subway and step out onto the powdered snow street, there’s a moment of awe. For these slow seconds, a hush settles over New York. It’s a feeling of something transcendental, settling around you. (Of course there’s a rude awakening shortly thereafter because of the bitter, biting wind.)

Every weekend I’m roaming the city streets. I’m chasing these snow globe moments.

“I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of non-feeling, or stop questioning and criticising life and take the easy way out. To learn and to think; to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.”

— The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I took a photo of this building when I first moved to New York. I thought it was very different and unique, and I really liked it.

Just tonight did I realize I live on the same street as this building, in fact, I live quite close by. This is what happens when you finally look up at what’s in front of you.