The lean years. The fat years.

[Zee porch: T by Alexander Wang t-shirt + Made with Love necklace + Joie boots + TR cut offs. Told you: it’s all faded shirts/cutoffs for me right now.]

Today, this is a game-changer:

And if you can, as you start out, what could be lean years, or could be fat years… I very often watch a lot of young people sort of meander around, without any idea about why they’re doing what they’re doing. I mean, to want—and to be ambitious—and to want to be successful—is not enough. That’s just desire. To know what you want, to understand why you’re doing it, to dedicate every breath in your body to achieve, if you feel you have something to give—if you feel that your particular talent is worth developing, is worth caring for? Then there’s nothing you can’t achieve. – Kevin Spacey

I’m covered in goosebumps after watching this video, found via Richie Design, who always seems to single out those gems on the web that restore my faith in humanity.

Without going into much detail, I needed to hear what he had to say, in this instant. Needed to hear it.

Where are you right now? The lean years? The fat years? Would you know you were in the fat years, even if you were? Are you wise enough to call your lean years fat years?

I’m all over the map with this one. Rob and I have taken to calling it the panic of knowledge curve. One moment you feel like you understand what you’re doing, the next moment brings the shock of perceived inadequacy.

Life was not designed to be a breeze, as much as I like to think it is. Internalizing these realizations and keeping your chin up, I’m convinced, is the key. Doing the best you can.

So while I bemoaned my semi-disastrous laundry experience yesterday, I got a perspective-soaked note from my mom: the true tackler of stressful moves. My dad’s work brought her here from Florida—with a slew of horrifying wrong turns (some, literal)—and then back to Florida, an inconceivable turn of events, given she’d come to love this place as much as I always have. But I forget how much I already knew coming here, and could infinitely appreciate her bullet list of New Richmonder errs:

1. Driving the wrong way on Cary Street.

2. Cat mauled in first week…

3. … and unable to find vet.

4. No. Central. Air.

7. Realizing too late that you DO NOT wear shorts and T-shirt or bathing suit cover-up to Ukrops…EVER. No excuses. You will ALWAYS see someone you know and did not particularly want to see.

8. I missed the sign-up for Cotillion? Baseball? She can’t wear Jellies to St. Catherine’s? Or culottes? [I remember that day at school in 2nd grade. The same day someone called me a ‘yankee’.]

9. My kids need “fall” clothes? I need fall clothes?

With that… I take things in stride.

And not just ‘moving’ things. Life things. Big things.

I make every breath count.

-Carey