It is one of those hot, humid, sticky summer evenings.

Where the lull of a train whistle echoes off in the distance. And the night sky is painted so many different shades of red and pink and pretty.

It is one of those hot, humid, sticky summer evenings that reminds me of my childhood summer nights spent here. Wrapped in comfort and adoration from my grandparents. Eating too much ice cream and staying up too late.

Tonight, I walked the evening streets with Murphy. I needed to clear my head and make sense of the world — which I don’t ever really make sense of, but I feel like I might be coming a little closer this time.

I never know when I need to take a deep breath and a step back and forward at the same time — until my walks. Until I feel my body start to relax and Higher Self start to say, yes, dear, THIS is what we needed, thank you.

I don’t know why Life sometimes just feels too much. Too grownupy. Too serious. This makes me feel alone. Till I start playing Pandora. My Lillith Fair station {as The BF jokingly calls it}.

Do you ever stop to actually listen to song lyrics? When I do, it never fails to bring me back around to this Truth: we are all lonely, just trying to do our best and figure it out and it hurts, really bad a lot of the time and it’s hard to make sense of the hurt but it’s there and it’s okay that it’s there.

My first day of my senior year of high school, I picked my bestie up with the windows rolled down and the sunroof back. Blasting Third Eye Blind’s Semi Charmed Kind Of Life.

I remember so clearly as though it were literally yesterday, singing loudly, I want something else to get me through this semi charmed kind of life baby and thinking/saying/praying the same thing to God: please get me through this. I NEED something else to get me through. PLEASE be it.

I thought then at 17, I’d finally figure it out and stop needing something else to get me through Life. If anything, I just feel like I need something more and more.

So I walk. I yoga. I meditate. I try my damndest to connect. To nourish what needs to be fed. To dull the pain of Life. To constantly look for the beauty in all things and People.

To consciously choose happiness.