If I Could Bottle This

It would be green and amber and smell like dried leaves and baby cheeks. If I could bottle this, this most perfect autumn day, I could take it out and uncork it when I'm feeling weak and weepy, and it would be magical. It is magical.

Sitting at a picnic table in the sunlight filtered through the turning leaves, arms outstretched on the warm wood, only myself and Angela and the two blond babies we love, we weren't in New York City anymore. We were alone in this park, in this place, in this magical land of September. I thought about the delicate balance I always try to keep my life in, this delicate balance of happiness and hard work and a little melancholy, trying all the time to keep myself in "a good place," whatever that actually means. When I'm finally in a good place, it's so good- even if it's not happiness, particularly, it becomes happiness- because I'm content, and it's alright, and it's right. And when something happens that throws off the delicate balance and I'm no longer in that place, that beautiful, fragile emotional state, it is so damn hard to get it back.

Things like September and sunlight and the colors when I close my eyes, and the music when I lay my head down, these are the things I know can bring me back to my place, bring me back to me. I just have to keep finding them, and recognizing them, and cherishing them as long as they last, however long or short that may be. I have to keep being blessed by them, and knowing my blessings. I have to keep trusting, no matter how hard or scary it is, that I will be blessed again. I will. It is my destiny to appreciate the tiny, wonderful things in this world more and more, until not a day goes by that I don't feel amazed or in awe. We should all be this way- in awe of all that is around, because while there is a lot of ugliness in this life, there is far more beauty. Sometimes it's fleeting. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's scary as hell. But none of it should be taken for granted.

These moments- this is what makes my strange, confusing, lost little life make sense. Every once in a while, it starts to make sense.

xoxoxoxoBon