Priceless

This year has been one of transitions thus far.
Boyfriends + babies. Roommates + school. Leaving + staying. Laughing + crying. Learning + growing. Painting + pushing. Friendship + letters. Slow + deep.
Everything.
Everything is changing.

I keep having to remind myself to live now. This period of incessant changing has caught me slightly off-guard. I'm always looking for tomorrow, the new day, the one after right now when everything will be my new normal and I will pause again, and then live. But it's the small moments now that I need. They are exquisite, or so I keep telling myself. Because I know that next year, they will be. So I am bottling them up, writing them down, remembering all. I am living now. Because one day, I won't be.
Now always changes. It has a habit of doing that.

I drove my little sister to camp this summer. We sat in the car for six hours and told each other our best, most favorite stories. The moments of our lives that we'll never forget. The small, cherished things that one holds dearest. The memories that you grasp at and clutch to your breast because they are beautiful, and you never want to lose them. Those stories.
We shared our unforgettable times.
I didn't realize before then that I have so many. I love a handful of people probably too much, and they don't even know it, but they all came to light when I shared my stories with my baby sister. It was like I had just discovered them again. That one time, I would tell her. That one time with him or with her, and we did this or we did that, and it was perfect. And then I would stop myself, a warmth blossoming in my chest, and I would think,
Yes. I had almost forgotten how special they are to me.
Sometimes I think it's a shame that we can't live in our most wondrous times forever.
But no. We have to live now too. We have to keep going. Or we have to stop.

Time is something we made up to understand our experiences and surroundings and lives, but the truth is, we'll never understand it.
We don't have to.

I danced in front of my little sister's closet the other day + then I sewed a yellow banner for my other little sister. It was a now moment. One of those ones when I took a second and reminded myself, live this. 

One of God's sweetest gift to humankind is that we choose what we live. We choose what we get to remember, because we make the memories.

In all truth + honesty, that alone is priceless.