*Italics are then and this is now

August 2015

Location: North/South Lake and Kaaterskill Falls Activity: Hiking

Getting lost has always been something I’ve been good at. I’m not sure I was born with what they call a directional sense. I also don’t take directions too well and often turn for no reason when someone doesn’t continue to tell me to drive straight. I need reassurance or we are going left!

This date felt like I went looking for that ‘get lost’ feeling. Following my navigation into the woods and losing service… I didn’t hate it. It was nice to truly disconnect from the world and get into my head for a bit without regard. I think this is why I love living upstate. I can be in Albany one day living that city life and then somewhere beautiful like this in the same day. It’s the best of both worlds and I love it. 

Hiking is definitely something I have begun to enjoy more and more since living upstate. Being out in the woods definitely played with my anxiety a bit this time, but I think that’s going to be a good thing for me. I think learning how to navigate through fear, especially irrational fear, is going to be beneficial for me in every aspect of my life. I have always hated how anxious I get and how quickly I can go from calm to crazy. This is one of those things that has made self love very hard for me. Other people seem to have matured past this state well before me, feels immature. 

I find that it gets harder to love yourself as you get older because they’re all these timelines in your head and things you were supposed to have done by this age or that age. There are behaviors and feelings you aren’t supposed to have anymore or you should be navigating better. It all gets so mashed up in your head that you feel you need to be where other people are at that time or act calm like they are acting. 

I’ve always felt I was a late bloomer being that I achieved things a few years after I expected or thought was typical. The thing I need to remind myself when I feel like that is that my accomplishments are no less valid done at a later than expected date. 

Maybe that is the thing with romantic love. I was never meant to love someone else this early in my life because I need to love myself completely first.  

Learning: Things will happen at the right time for you even if it doesn’t feel like it now. 

July 2020

Reflecting on these writings has been like reading letters to myself from the past. I want that girl to know how right she was and how right she continues to be. Things happen when they are supposed to and some of the things she wanted to happen already have.  

I truly felt heartbroken and upset with myself for not keeping up better with my writing during my solo dates. I felt that it was super hard to go back and edit what I could have just done in the moment. I thought it would be this awesome book to have on my shelf to look back on. I thought it would be easy to do, but it wasn’t. It was really hard to navigate how to do all the things I wanted to do. THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS I WANT[ED] TO DO! 

I feel so happy now reflecting on these pieces and writing in memoir form. This feels right and like what I wanted all along. 

My timing was never off; it just wasn’t my time yet.  


When you are in the moment and trying hard for something and it isn’t happening, it feels like it never will. That is when you need to remind yourself that the things that are supposed to happen will when that are supposed to. 

Sometimes things aren’t meant for us, or are not meant for us yet.  

I can’t wait to continue this journey back and continue to find and re-find and reconnect with my inner Smash.