saying hello

Now every fibre of me is awake

tingling with the perfect awareness

of their own physicality

chortling full of the knowledge

that they are alive -

even my fingers recognize the change

and reach for the sky, believing they can hold it all.

Who cares about being happier,

who needs more than we are 

today

here

now

as long as we are happy enough?

and I am happy enough.

 

Even though I blogged quite a lot in August, it feels like forever since I actually sat down and was present here on my blog. Summer has stolen bits and pieces of me away in the best way possible, my attention tugged in one hundred different, wonderful directions, and I'm just beginning to sift all the glorious fragments back together. I've kept an eye on the blogging world, but it's been quiet over the past few months, so I don't feel like I've missed much.

I finished up working at my outdoor pool two weeks ago, and something tightened in my chest as I walked out the front door for the last time. I've started working at an indoor pool again this past Tuesday (this is my first year out of high school, but I'm taking a gap before university, stretching my wings a bit before settling down to schoolwork again) but something in me wants to hold tightly to the way things were, the outdoor pool with the sun on my face and in my hair, the same people every morning, and the other guards who eventually knew me almost as well as I know myself.

I get painfully, unavoidably attached to people. and then it hurts to let them go. I have not yet learned to retreat gracefully, to say goodbye without turning it into an ending. It is hard for me to believe in the ebb and flow of life, to recognize that every page turn is monumental not because it signals change, but because it is such a simple, constant action. It is important simply because of what it is, not because it points to anything greater.
Each chapter that ends, as this one does also means that a new one is beginning. It's hard to imagine that there could be more adventures worth having, when I'm not finished with this one yet. I suppose that's the way of adventures, of life in general. They sneak up on you whether you're quite ready for them or not. 

I'm ready to say hello to new experiences, working all day every day, instead of just evening shifts, ready to meet new people and try new things (this week I taught my first few aquafit classes!) I'm saying hello to new possibilities and opportunities, to free evenings and (hopefully!) lots of books. I'm saying hello to all the adventures I haven't had yet, hello to leaves that change colour and drift along the ground, hello to the beautiful crunch underfoot that is nothing like the bright sunshine of summer, but somehow is still perfect.

Hello, dear friends! Please update me about your lives - it feels like forever since we last talked and I MISS YOU ALL. What are you saying hello to lately?

xx
Olivia