Finding my way home

Today, I took the long way home. After leaving my mom’s house, I drove south. The city and the suburbs open up to vast country — to empty fields and hazy mid-winter sky. Though the weather is below 35 degrees, the heat is on in my car, and I’m driving fast towards the place I now call home, growing my wings and finding what suites me. The song playing on the radio is my jam, and I turn up the volume. The Sunday slowly rolls off my shoulders and into the following week. I am ready for cold mornings, for work, for volunteering, for whatever this week brings.

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I’ve come to love winters in the midwest. The cold that nips at your nose, figure tips, and toes. This winter has been exceptionally beautiful. While we’ve seen a lot of hazy blue-gray sky days, my heart has felt more at peace and at home than it has in a long time.

I often feel hugely out of place. I often feel like an imposter, like I’m not good enough. But lately, I’ve found peace and calmness in doing my thing well in quiet and without much glamour or fuss. I’ve been enjoying slow evenings at home, maybe a candle lit with some soft music in the background. I have books littering my coffee table. Dishes linger in the sink from many good meals cooked. I like the process these evenings bring, the inviting warmth. Maybe I’m not supposed to be chasing a moment in the spotlight; I think my nerves would definitely testify that I freeze up and become accident prone when there are a ton of eyes on me. Maybe I just need a quiet corner to do my work well.

That is what this winter has been teaching me. While the outside world beckons us during spring and summer, it’s okay to draw into the warm, quiet, and gentle peace that occupies the winter.

I’ve taken time off of Instagram this month. I’m trying to read through as many books as possible while taking this time off from online socialization. Ideally, I’m trying to read through the entire stack of books on my bedside table before officially downloading the app again. Although I love the window Instagram and other social media gives into other’s perspectives and pieces of lives people are willing to share, I found myself addicted to the scrolling, the watching, the disconnecting it led to in my own life. Since stepping away, I’ve noticed that I have more time to read words in books, write my own words, or just sit quietly while waiting for my coffee while in line at Starbucks or in the mornings when I’m sipping coffee. I’ve noticed that I can hear my own thoughts rather than constantly listen to others’. While I fully love hearing others’ revelations and ideas, sometimes it would seem like they knew me better than I knew myself. I needed this time for my thoughts to surface, to know myself better and my feelings deeper. I need this quiet time to think and to breathe.

Regardless though, I love sharing photos, and I miss sharing the small beautiful moments I find myself in — like swing dancing on a Friday night and being downtown late at night, as the coffee shop closes and I’m in the corner with my Love sipping on warm drinks. Or like the other day, when I found myself in the middle of the country, my man is driving, and I’m in the passenger’s seat looking out at the horizon. The earth getting darker and darker, the sun sunk below twenty minutes ago and the clouds are tucking into bed the northern part of the world.

Here are a few moments I found myself in these past 16 days. The beautiful and the messy. I lay them out here for the sake of sharing stories and documenting this small, beautiful life I find myself in. The life I’m starting to pay more attention to, this winter, where I’m starting to feel more alive and more at home.