I saw a video on TikTok recently that stopped my scroll. It was girls jumping off moss-covered rocks into the ocean, somewhere in Europe, golden and laughing and completely free. The audio was ABBA and it said in light yellow font "but the sun is still in the sky and shining above you." I watched it four times, reposted it, and then went down a rabbit hole of going through my photos and videos from my trip to Greece. Dancing, jumping into the mediterranean fully clothed, bike riding on an island I might never step foot on ever again.
It made me think about my best days, and how almost every single one of them has happened under bright sunny days. And then it made me think, I'm always under the sun. Even on the grey days, the heavy ones, the ones that feel like they might not end. The sun isn't gone. It's just covered.
Somehow, that's always been enough for me.
It made me think more about traveling.Where you land somewhere completely unfamiliar and that's entirely the point. Europe does something to me that I can't fully explain and have stopped trying to. The new people who become permanent memories. The food you can't pronounce but order anyway. The feelings you're having for the very first time, that you didn't even know were available to you. There is nothing quite like a first time. It's proof that there's always more ahead.
And that, I realized, is exactly how I move through life.
I went to therapy once. Not because I thought I needed it, but because my parents did. I was going through something tough, and even though I felt surprisingly okay about the whole thing, I went anyway, if only to prove a point. After the first session, the therapist leaned back and said, "Well, it seems like you have a really great handle on this, and a really healthy outlook on life, even with everything going on."
I smiled, thanked her, and thought — I know.
I've never been someone who needed to unpack herself out loud. My problems were mine, and somewhere deep down I always trusted that I'd figure it out. That time would do what time does. That I'd land on my feet, probably in great shoes.
In high school, before every nerve-wracking test or performance, I'd give myself the same quiet reminder: the day is going to come and go anyway, so I might as well try my best. I've been saying it for over ten years now. At some point it stopped being a pep talk and just became my personality.
I'm 26, which I always imagined would feel impossibly grown up. And in some ways it does mortgage, taxes, a career I actually care about building. But mentally? Still 17. Still singing as loud as possible with the windows down. Still having better days when they end surrounded with good music and ice cream and my bestfriends. Adulthood, I've decided, is really just the teenage years with better wine and worse hangovers. The feelings are the same. You just have more square footage to have them in.
Right now, my life reads like a very chaotic, very beautiful to-do list. A magazine designer, a bikini line mid-production. A pilates class to teach. A heart still quietly healing from losing my dog. It's a lot to carry. But I'm not drowning in it. I'm moving through it. Slowly, and honestly unbothered.
And the thing about moving slowly is everything still gets done. It always does. And when it comes together, I never once think, Oh man I should have rushed this. I think the complete opposite. If I had done it sooner, it would have been different. This article would be about something else entirely. That design would have missed something. The timing shapes the thing, and the thing always turns out exactly as it was meant to.
Maybe that's what the glass half full really means, not just gratitude for what's here, but anticipation for what isn't yet. The belief that the good stuff isn't behind you. That the sun is still up there, doing its thing, whether you can see it or not.
I couldn't help but think, what if the secret to a full life isn't moving faster, or having it all figured out, or never falling apart? What if it's just knowing, somewhere quiet and certain inside yourself, that the day is going to come and go anyway? And a trip to Europe every now and then.