Panhandle

In the early afternoon, we pack up our home office and tread down the avenue. Only a few steps away from everything familiar and still how different home looks from this vantage point. A turn of the century apartment building towers, yet you have never seen it like this before, truly seen it and you wonder what lesson it's trying to teach you. The bar window is open in late October, fall is mild in the city and you adore the Hollywood way the yellow locust leaves choose to twirl down to the ground: it is a gift.

I wrote my younger self a letter today, to see what I may say. Mostly, I suppose, they are cliches, encouragements of how it gets better and how you just have to make it through. But it is easier to also be kind to yourself a few years removed, easier to treat your former self like you would anyone you love. I wish you would have overcome your fears sooner. The point of all of this is just to love and be loved. The point is to experience as much as you possibly can, because what is life if not just one great adventure, and you'll never regret stumbling as long as you also flew.

If you leap, you are bound to fly, eventually.

Let them love you. 
Let you love you. 

Everyone is doing the best they can. 
Yourself, included.