Carpe Whatever

I have felt pressure, for the past three years, to seize life. Today, the day after the birthday, it seemed to me that the pressure's expiration date had arrived. I've hounded myself enough. I guess I just didn't want to realize down the road that I should have done this or that, if only I had done this or that. Today I felt no fear–just gratitude. Heck, the first 24 years were awesome. There's already been so much good that I'm set for life. I know that's not how it works. I know that good things will happen. But it's nice to feel like I'm riding, coasting. I don't need anything else. I don't need anything.

Yesterday. Photo by Blondie.

"Let the century pass me by
Standing under a night sky
Tomorrow means nothing." 

Playlist of my life

I turn 25 today. I compiled a playlist for the 24 ages I've been before. I planned to pick one song to represent each year, but I ended up choosing albums for certain years, and, in one case, I couldn’t limit myself to one selection.

Age 4: first favorite song, Enya’s Orinoco Flow [heard it at daycare during naptime and fell for it]

5: West Side Story End Credits [danced ‘ballet’ to this one in the living room many times]

6: Elton John’s Can You Feel The Love Tonight [sang this to the boys I liked in 1^st grade]

7: Natalie Cole’s Route 66

8: Jewel’s You Were Meant For Me

9: James Horner’s Titanic Soundtrack

10: Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris

11: New Radicals’ You Get What You Give

12: Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP

13: Vanessa Carlton’s Be Not Nobody Album

14: Carbon Leaf’s Echo Echo Album

15: Jewel’s This Way

16: Blink 182’s I Miss You

17: Carbon Leaf’s Indian Summer Album [beginning things with Blondie, trip to Hilton Head a la Indian Summer]

18: Modest Mouse’s The World At Large [away at college for the first time]

19: Con Dolore’s Keeper

20: Shout Out Loud’s Impossible & Coldplay everything [Impossible was my song for the England Abroad and I discovered Coldplay right after the Abroad]

21: Jay Z and Alicia Keys’ Empire State of Mind [dancing to this during the career conference, full of gratitude for Prin, which was, for me, the NY of this song]

22: Bon Iver’s Skinny Love

23: Matt and Kim’s Daylight

24: Twenty-One Pilots’ Holding Onto You

"Let me sail, let me sail,
let the orinoco flow,
Let me reach, let me beach
On the shores of Tripoli." Ah, Enya calling to my 4-year-old soul. The thing is, I still like all these songs. So, apparently we're born with a certain taste? 

Filling

Fill your life with things you like.