This weekend, Dane and I were sitting in traffic around 7PM on Saturday with the windows down listening to James Taylor after a day of cooking out and snorkeling at the beach with our friends. Our skin was covered in dried saltwater and our bathing suits still clung to us beneath sandy beach cover-ups. We watched as the sun painted pinks, blues and yellows across the horizon and eventually set in our rear-view mirror. Normally I’d be complaining about my bathing suit sticking to me, wanting to take a shower and how hungry/hot/tired I was–but something about this night was so perfect.
It was in this very moment that I realized I’m exactly where I always wanted to be. Growing up, we have these expectations for ourselves and for the future — I can’t even count the number of times people prompted me, “Where do you see yourself in X years?”
I don’t think my answer was ever “Living in Hawaii with the love of my life.”
I think that the majority of my answers involved living in a big city apartment, strolling the sidelines of an NFL field, writing press releases or hopping around bars with my friends like college never ended.
Feelings and emotions were never part of my concrete answers, but they should have been.
You see, while I’m not living in a big city apartment or working at a grand PR firm, I’m happy, and at the heart of everything–that’s what I wanted to be all along.
Are you where you want to be?