Dear beloved readers,

Do you want to hear something crazy? This time next week we will be a day away from my favorite day of the year, aka my very own birthday. But you see, this year is a bit more than that, it’s my first married birthday, it’s my first birthday celebrating with my new, bigger family, and more than that, my birthday happens to be the day before my honeymoon! 

That’s right! For those who wondered, finally, after having to go back to my master’s after a whole four days of being married, I am happy to announce that Big and I will be going on our honeymoon this June, and we are going to the freaking middle of bum fuck Egypt. I cannot wait! 

I kinda can’t believe that I am reaching my mid-twenties, which sounds silly now because I feel like getting married kinda aged me in a subjective, interpretive way, you know what I mean? Like obviously I am still young, but when I say I am married or wife, I feel like it ages me. I have a sister-in-law who is four years older than me, and yet when we are together, I feel a gazillion times older than her, and it’s not because she sometimes goes out to party on a Wednesday and doesn’t come back home for a week, things that I, not even at my peak party girl phase, ever did. 

But in a way, I was thinking about this this week, and it feels like I so have my shit together now at 23, more than I ever thought I would. Obviously that feeling comes from the fact that I found and married the love of my life and you know, that makes like fulfilling in ways that to me were once unimaginable. But I also feel like this is the year I matured the most, partially for the same reasons listed so I guess moral of the story: Get the fuck married and everything will fall into place. Which of course is a joke, but with at least some lawyer of seriousness to it. 

It’s definitely a personal matter, a matter of personal preference, but having a ride or die like that, someone so constant like that, that shit is life changing. It is comforting, it is powerful, it’s a kind of connection that is so genuine, so personal, that it really feels like I found the love of my life. And as someone who proudly always believed in such cliché, I can not help but only hope that everyone gets to experience this someday. To love is such a wonderful thing, but to be loved? To be cherished, adored, taken care of, praised? That is unmatchable. 

I am happy. I think that is something that even now, at the most comfortable my life has ever been, I sometimes still struggle when admitting to myself. Happiness used to be a luxury not a certain for me, and I grabbed onto it whenever it did as much as glimpse at me. But now happiness is no longer a stranger in a bar I am trying to fuck who is out of my league and dodging my hungry gaze at all cost. Happiness is my personal bitch who I own. I just LOLed because I really thought I was going on some profound metaphor here, but it is truly how I feel. And it’s scary to own such a feeling, to be such a feeling, because happiness is a rare commodity that I can’t ever get used to, I can’t ever not appreciate.

I feel like at the same time, I am constantly very anxious for things, about things, things I want for the future, things that are not even remotely a shadow of a worry. But there I am, crying to my husband because it suffocates me like nothing before. And I read things on those motivational websites like “the version of your life you live right now is at least one of your old prayers,” and fuck it if it’s not true, but why the fuck being present is so hard?! I struggle with being in the moment, I find that most of my conversations are about what will come in the years ahead, and my gazillion fears of what will be of me, when I am 24 will I still feel this way? And 25? 38?! 

It’s funny. I want the world to stand still, for it to just englobe the seconds where happiness turns into joy, which is a spirit rather than an emotion, and I want to freeze myself there forever.

I hope that this new year of life I get to be present, I get to take it slower. That I really learn to differentiate the emergent anxieties from the stuff I can store and look at later. I want to prioritize my bread making hours, my moments lighting on candles and sitting quietly in my bed, I want to cherish every cup of coffee, every curl on my husband’s head, every second outdoors, and every fucking minute of my yet-somehow-still early-twenties. And fuck it, I will. 

Beloved readers, we are coming up on what?! Seven years together? You’ve seen me grow, seen me blossom from moon-eyed girl to sun-powered women, and it has been the joy of my life to have this space, a space I will cultivate for every season of my life, come what may, friends, enemies, work, post-Samantha Jones AJLT, I will be here, and you may always count on me. Stay safe and out of trouble but, if you don’t – oh my god, tell me all about it. 

– Your Girl On The Go