Sometimes I just wake up with this fire to write.
Sometimes I just wake up with a need for TV and food and Pinterest.
Without coffee, I lack motivation. Without a goal, I lack ambition.

I graduated from college almost a year ago (!!!) and while I've comfortably settled into a career that I love and a life that I recognize as blessed, I've been without a goal for quite some time. Almost a year, in fact.

Perhaps it's because graduation was my goal for such a long time -- maybe I forgot what it means to create a goal and chase the hell out of it. I'd been chasing for a long time and was kind of....tired. Graduation was sweet and launching into my career was natural. The feeling of ahhh was so sumptuous after such a long race--- I wasn't ready to let go.

I guess I forgot how good it feels to see something high up in the sky and just raise up my arm and reach. The stretch, the visual gauging of how far away it is and seeing the steps begin to appear, that stuff is magic and I forgot all about it.

This. This right here, this stupid picture I was taking when I realized I have a new goal. Finally, a new plan to begin projecting and the steps began to appear out of nowhere.

Someday, I don't know when or how or what I'll be doing, but someday, I'll live in Arizona.


Everything about this place, from the way the sky folds up into sheets of purply-blue  right before it suddenly becomes night to the way mountains are just everywhere, is remarkable.

I suppose that's where the evolution began, because nothing good was ever created in a single thought. See the world, I decided. All of it.


See the mountains.


And the deserts.


See how people live.





See the lakes in the desert. They exist and they're magnificent.



Go off roading. On the side of a mountain.
Paved roads are for sissies.


See the worlds highest elevations. Travel upwards from a sandy desert and watch as the world goes from beige to green.


And bring your best friend. Because even the coolest things are stupid if you don't have anyone to share them with. Cue the After School Special music.


*****
I need light and sun and blue skies to survive.
I also need food.



Those are fried macaroni and cheese bites. For realsies.
See what I mean? Arizona is where it's at.




It's been a long time since I felt the fire of burning ambition. After years of an uncontrollable drive to get graduated, it was downright delicious to lay back in the fruits of my labor. I had a heady few months of spinning around in my office chair, taking stock of supply of business cards and grinning goofily when a family friend greeted me with, "Hey Career-girl."

It was a little like, well:
Do you ever have those nights when, exhausted, you fall into bed but in the briefest moments before you pass out, recognize the luxurious feeling of just...laying there?

The feeling is stupid, it's so good. But then, in the morning, when you wake up, uncurling yourself, pulling and prying your limbs back into their places is equally incredible. The stretch, it's necessary. It's healthy.

Everything in its time.

The fire is back on. It's stoked and burning hot.
See the world.