I spent the holiday watching random videos, interviews, and documentaries, and after an entire day of checking off and adding even more things to my Netflix watch list (there’s so much to watch!), I’m trying to remind myself that there’s a world beyond my laptop screen, a world of actual flesh and beating hearts. I think that means I need to get out of the house, see a friend. My therapist says I’m the most introverted kind of extrovert, and having been at home for four solid days, I think it’s time to extrovert myself.

The day itself has been, oh, peachy. I did yoga (ouch, but good), spent some time online (but not on Facebook), ate Taco Bell with my parents. This evening I washed my car, Tom Collins, which reminded me how much I like him. Then I went for a two-hour walk and listened to Oprah interview JK Rowling, something I’ve been meaning to do since last year. Just as the interview started, I strolled through a neighborhood where I once worked as a wedding photographer. I couldn’t remember the exact house, but I recall being really sick that day. The bride was Laotian, and we took our shoes off for the ceremony in the living room. Later that day there was a Christian ceremony for the groom, and that night, every Laotian in the tri-state area showed up for loud music and more fried rice than I’ve seen before or since. Honestly, it was hell.

For whatever reason, while listening to the creator of Harry Potter say she wasn’t the world’s most confident person, but she knew she could tell a story, I walked down a road I’ve never been on before. There was an ugly, ugly house that looked like three different houses held together with glue sticks. I probably seemed like I was casing the joint, but I couldn’t stop staring. Of course, by staring, I mean judging. But after passing the house, I continued down a road with all these empty plots. The full moon hung in the sky like a lantern, the air was cool, and, although nothing was happening, it felt like there was room for possibility.

Honestly, that’s what my life feels like right now. Mentally, I dedicate a portion of every day to the idea that nothing is happening, that my life is stuck, but there’s a lot of space here, space where something could happen. Every time someone asks me what I’m doing, all I can think is, Waiting to be discovered. I think one of the many, many lessons I’m learning right now is that everything happens in its own time, that nothing can be forced. People read what I write or don’t. I can’t make anyone like my Facebook page. This afternoon I got overwhelmed with all the books I’m reading and all the videos on my watch list, and I realized it all has to do with the idea that I need something I don’t have. I used to think, I need to not be dying at a Laotian wedding. Now I think, I need more knowledge, I need a job.

It’s always something.

I remember exactly where I was sitting when I read Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and It’s all Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. It was my parent’s kitchen table, probably ten years ago. Why I remember shit like this, I can’t say, but one of the chapters said, “When you die, your ‘in basket’ won’t be empty.” I guess the point is that we will always have things on our to-do lists. My list of books to read and videos to watch will never be completely checked off. UGH. I hate that.

I’m just going to take a second to let that sink in. I’ll never be–done.

A few weeks ago I had lunch with my friend Marla. We went to a Thai restaurant, and one of the booths had been set aside with a sign on it that said, “This chair got out of a bad relationship–it is broken. Do not sit on it.” Funny, right? For the last few weeks I’ve been meaning to blog about that chair because I know my personal tendency when I’m feeling down, overwhelmed, or broken is to–essentially–sit on myself. My life gets too much to handle, and rather than taking the pressure off, I put more on. I tell myself I need to do more, be more–now. It’s exhausting. Of course, being hard on yourself is a lot like sitting on a broken chair–it’s no way to hold yourself up.

Personally, I’m glad to be the strongly independent person I am, but I know I often isolate myself in the name of independence. I am a rock and all that bullshit. It’s easy to stay home for four days, get stuck in my head, and think that if something big doesn’t happen in a weekend–or a year–that it won’t happen at all. Tonight JK Rowling said, “I know what I believe because of what I write,” and when I look at what I write, I’m reminded that I believe in hope, and I believe in asking for help, and I believe in beating hearts. After all, we all hold each other up. We may never be done, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never be complete. And surely we are complete right here, right now, and surely there is space enough for the full moon, for you and for me, and all our possibilities.