twentytwo
i feel overwhelmed knowing where to begin. after 5 years of writing these, they have become my own little "academy awards acceptance speech" where the award is another year of life and the audience is the peole who feel so incined to read a chapter from an auto-biography. each year feeling like the most important thing i will write all year only to forget about it a week later. i was sure i wouln't be writing this, like always. and like always, someone asked about my yearly reflection, triggering my desire to remain consistent and disciplined. welcome to the academy awards.
twenty-one was a wild dream. it was pieced toegether with pinch me moments and love that must have been out of a rom-com. this was the most "camille" year a year could be. a full year in boston. mornings were slow, often with a book in hand or spent at a coffee shop. on the weekends, i often took long walks to somewhere new. week nights were spent in watching sex and the city or the parent trap. and saturday nights were for jazz, social clubs, or wine bars. i bought myself flowers regularly. i put on a cute outfit even if it meant i saw no one. i learned what it meant to create my reality that i could not stop dreaming about. i began creating with my hands again. i connected to myself again. i lived life through rose colored glasses and learned this...this is how the simple moments turn into the most extraordinary.
admittedly, i spent a lot of this year alone. yet spending a year alone is not to be confused with spending the year lonely. i have dreamt of being alone like this. this year was all about me. a narcissist's dream come true. i discovered what it means to actually exist as camille. the version that is untouched by who she is around or where she is at. the version that lives with so much zest and tenacity and tenderness because simply living is truly the most fun. i took myself on dates like the queen i was. i was my own best friend this year for the first time in my whole life. as i discovered, the love i pour out to others is gold and i finally gave myself an ounce.
i lived for what felt unncomfortable. i acted with gut instinct, making some of my most fun and enriching experiences. my MO was seeking out discomfort so much so that i hardly know what being comfortable means anymore. everything about this year has been wildly new and foreign for me. i ran a half marathon, i booked sporadic trips to nyc, the cape, and everywhere inbetween. everything about this year has been the new - revealing my obsession and addiction to change. seeking out discomfort and change felt exciting, always leading to something, somewhere, or someone new.
being camille and twenty one was exciting, and not in the way that a typical twenty-one year old's life is (dont you forget that i am not like other girls). it was wild in that i have never grown or changed so much in so many different ways, time and time again. i feel as if i have lived 10 beautiful life times in this one short year with how much has happened. they say a cat lives nine lives - i apparently live a new one everyday.
perhaps my favorite part of this year is that i have started to feel the most me i have ever felt; the product of so much time spent alone and so much self-improvement. i feel all the versions of myself that i have lived over my 21 years finally falling into one cohesive whole. i have been so many things in short, short life, yet all for different reasons or circumstances outside of myself. i finally feel myself living, dreaming, doing, acting for me and me alone. twentytwo is my year of placing all the puzzle pieces of my personality together and sharing the complexities of who i am with those i love most. all i ask for twentytwo is that i continue to chase the foreign thoughts, feelings, and actions. keep dreaming, and keep loving with your whole being.and of course, regularly buying myself flowers is nonnegotiable. i don't know what twentytwo will hold, yet if it is anything like how i spent my 22nd birthday, it will be nothing short of beautiful, tender, lovely, and so camille.
xoxo
