This summer didn’t feel like healing. It didn’t feel like fixing. It felt like living.
I’ve been saying yes — yes to fun, yes to being outside, yes to nights that end too late and mornings that start too early. Because, like, bro, I’m 23. If there’s ever a time to just go, it’s now. Go out. Laugh too hard. Say too much or say nothing at all. Take the drive to the next state over. Stay out too late with your best friend. Meet strangers and let them become part of your story, even if just for a moment. Be comfortable in yourself enough to show up for life, not shrink from it.
And the crazy thing is, in the middle of all that rowdiness, I found God. Or maybe I just noticed Him more. He’s been water — steady, flowing, carrying me in the quiet and in the noise. My faith has deepened in a way that’s shifted everything: the way I move through rooms, the way I write, the way I breathe. It’s taught me that freedom and grounding aren’t opposites — they can live in the same heartbeat.
With that freedom came people. New faces. New stories. Little sparks of divine timing that made me stop and realize how much of life is stitched together by moments we can’t plan. People are hidden gems. Sometimes the most dazzling sights cast shadows — but if you look closer, right in front of you, are souls so radiant you wonder how you ever missed them.
But with every new hello, I also had to face the necessity of goodbye. And that was a lesson in itself: that letting go isn’t cruel. It isn’t shameful. Letting go is an act of love for myself. It’s permission to not hold space I don’t have, to not force myself into rooms I’ve outgrown. I’ve realized that peace is a form of love, too — maybe the most radical one.
And that peace gave me room to create. Ideas I once tucked away are now taking shape — in my blog, in collaborations, in visions I used to only whisper about. I’m learning to trust the process, even when God’s will doesn’t look like the picture I painted in my head. Maybe especially then. Because His plan has carried me further than my own could have.
So no — this summer wasn’t about fixing myself, or searching for something outside of me. It was about being. About soaking in the rowdy and the stillness, the strangers and the friends, the freedom and the grounding.
Becoming, I’m learning, isn’t a finish line. It’s in the nights that stretch too long, the conversations that shift us, the choices to let go, and the courage to say yes again. This summer was proof that I’m still becoming — and that living is enough.
