THE BUS

Beep, beep!

‘Mana’ a painting by one of my oldest friends Paige Harte-Rivera. For about 3 years I was lucky enough to live with this painting and several other pieces of hers in my home while her and her husband were living in Mexico. During this period everyone who came over thought I had way better taste in art than I actually do. ‘Mana’ hung in my bedroom <3.

Last week was my birthday, which means I'm about a week.5 into this new chapter of my life. Timelines have never been my downfall, but for whatever reason, ringing in another year always brings out a deeply anxious side of my personality. In an era where the NAD is flowing and plastic surgery has never been better, this makes zero sense, but like clockwork, February after February, I find myself going down some "shoulda, coulda, woulda" rabbit hole that leads to absolutely nothing.

Previously, my tactic to tame this millennial-induced tornado has been to write a narrative of my dream life for the next 365 days. I get super granular with it, describing in detail how I want to feel in any and all scenarios I'm working towards—the exciting, the challenging, the creative, the unexpected. It's a great exercise, one I've really loved and always looked forward to. Over the last few weeks, however, I've sat down to flesh out the chronicles of my future self at least 20 times. But this year, try as I might, the storyline just isn't coming together, and I am officially jumping ship and will be "winging" the next 365 days. There are a lot of ways you can spin this—I'm happy, I'm tired, I'm in the zone—and while a little bit of all of these things is true, I'm taking this cosmic writer's block as a sign from the universe to keep doing exactly what I'm doing.

I have this very distinct memory from my 20’s—I took a job that was all wrong for me and was really struggling to make my place in the world make sense. In passing, a coworker asked me how I was doing and all I could respond was "I need to get off this bus." Over the last few years, I've had a handful of opportunities come my way that really made me think "THIS IS IT!!!!! Grace Van Vranken, you have arrived!" Some of them were sexy, splashy obvious golden tickets and others were roads less traveled—those sneaky paths that reveal themselves to you , not necessarily adding up to anything, but leaving you with no choice but to venture down them.

Me on the first day of Kindergarten. I figured out the bus for her…

One by one I've watched these green lights turn red, slipping through my fingers, forcing me to reroute. I wasted a lot of time beating myself up, believing that who I inherently am has been the square peg blocking me from the round hole of my dreams. In the last few months however I got sick of this plot line. I wish there was some big ‘ah-ha moment’, but there wasn’t….rather, something shifted when I allowed myself the privilege to metabolize that certain outcomes I once desperately needed to define ‘me’ simply were not meant to be mine. It’s still a work in progress, but in turn I have been privy to glimpses of the ultimate superpower: freedom. Now when I think about "the bus," it's no longer a vehicle I can't wait to get off, but rather the safest place I return to, because I'm the one behind the wheel. For the first time in my life, on most days, the only person steering my thoughts and potential is me—not the opinions of the rest of the world.

So here I am, another year older with no specific roadmap, outline, or mood board for the next part of the course, other than the belief than there is not a single person on this earth more capable of making my dreams come true than me. I'll keep you posted...

More satire next week. Thank you for reading this Substack... xx