let the stars fall where they may

I just realized that I didn’t update this blog once the entire month of August. I generally don’t get too personal here, but this summer has been hard. Work has been amazing (so, so many good weddings to share) but consuming (I’m averaging 70-80 hours a week, and am currently in the middle of seventeen weekends of weddings in a row) but for the most part, life outside of work has felt like one hit after another, for me and for far too many of the people who make up my life.

I got back last night from spending the holiday weekend (after doing a Friday wedding) at my family’s beach house, with a group of friends both old and new, from many different walks of my life. I didn’t even realize how much I needed the break – both from work, and from how intense this summer has been personally – until I was driving home, my hair still smelling faintly of bonfire from the night before, sand mixing into the already-total dirtiness that is my car mid-wedding-season. This beach, more than anywhere else, has always been able to make me feel lighter, and it was especially noticeable this weekend, especially noticeable after the extreme heaviness of the last few weeks.

But despite how hard things have been at times recently, they have also really allowed me to appreciate how lucky I am, as hard things are wont to do. Lucky that I have a job that I truly adore, doing work that feels meaningful; that I have some of the most amazing, most incredible friends in the world, people who help lift me up when I cannot do it by myself; and that I have a family who is able to support each other as best as we know how through unbelievably awful things happening.

The quote referenced in the title and photo on this post is from a 2009 essay by Marget Gunther for the New York Times, and reads in full:

“It doesn’t seem fair that we can look back and connect the dots in life, and see what led from that to this, but we cannot look forward and anticipate in any way what constellation today’s dots will form in the vast space ahead of us. I guess it’s just best to assume that heaven is right here, right now, and let the stars fall where they may.”

I wrote it down three and a half years ago when I first saw it, and it came back into my head last night, driving across a bridge with the windows down. The space ahead is always vast, and, try as we might, we can’t line up the dots. So remember to feel lucky, and to always tell people that you love them.

(also, if I owe you an email, look for it in the next week, I’m finally getting caught up.)