against the grain.

It's cold here today and the desert is being baptized.
It feels fitting.
A good wash before the new year.
Rain pulling up the heat from the last year.
Washing away what was.
Preparing itself.
Pouring itself a drink.
Feeding a thirst it craves day in and day out.

The world became a different place, for me, this year.
I became a different person.
I changed my path.
I uprooted.
I reached.
I took the reins and I turned myself from something that I had known for far too long.
I dug deep.
I relocated.
I rooted.

"I" became an important word.
"I" became the most important word.

I've been thinking about life a lot lately (I know that sounds silly, I know we all ponder life pretty darn often). I've been thinking about life differently.
I've come to terms with what I truly believe and have realized life to be. It's a trip. It's a blessing. Those of us who get a free life owe nothing for it. We can choose to do anything with the one that we get. We all have the same goal- to make it to the end... and unfortunately, no one knows when that end will come. We do not have to be great. We do not have to work our lives away. If you can afford the life that you want, that life can be anything you so choose. You truly do not owe the world one single, solitary thing... but you only get one shot. One life. One yesterday... maybe even one tomorrow.
It makes me wonder why we are all so focused on the day to day grind. It makes me realize that the changes that I made to my life this year were monumental leaps in the right direction. It makes me sad for the people who feel stuck. Who use social media to "make it look good." Who have lost sight of who they have always wanted to be and succumbed to who their job pays them to be. Who let money control them. Who let money tell them what kind of life they have to live.Who find impressing others so important that they overlook their own unhappiness.

I want to spend my time loving people.
I want to spend my time enjoying "real" life.
I want to travel.
I want to try the things that terrify me. 
I want to save up and disappear for however long that may allow.
Venturing. Learning. Living in one very small, very real moment.
I want to collect this life.
From every corner that I can.
Because I can.
I want to breathe the wild air and when that air no longer fills my lungs, I want to know that I truly lived.

To hell with every "you should" rule. 
To hell-o to a very happy, to a very well-lived, to a very free human being with the gift of life in her body.

The best to you all, this new year.
Be well.