On Living Your Unicorn Life

Tacos, blueberry muffins, egg sammies, smoothie bowls, pizza, burritos, ice cream, and coffee. Those are like, the only food groups I know anymore. AND IT'S AMAZING.

The past month I've been living my life really, really intuitively. I've accepted that the things which usually bring me heaps of joy and satisfaction just aren't doing it for me lately. I've accepted the ebb and flow of my passion and creativity without judging myself for their absence.

Accepting isn't even the right word. Embracing is.

There are times when you wake up craving french toast and there are times when you want a veggie omelet. There are also times when you just crave living life a little differently. It's human nature to always have your exploration cap on. If you ignore intuition and force living in a way that's not right for that particular season of life, your well-being will likely suffer a bit.

It's like wanting a big fat ice cream sundae (or a unicorn frappuccino) and convincing yourself a lemon lime popsicle will do. Whether you take that literally or read it as a metaphor for sundae = more joy and delicious freedom, the popsicle is just not gonna happen. Our bamboozling brainies are so much smarter than that!!

I embrace eating coffee shop muffins for breakfast, calling frozen burritos lunch, and dinnering out on the town.

I embrace not feeling the desire to blog as often. I embrace not wanting to cook dinner. I embrace hiking versus the gym. And most of all, I embrace doing all of the aforementioned things with the most open of arms.

Lemme 'shplain.

The old/more rigid/less intuitive/more workaholic/less spontaneous/more hustler me would have judged the hell out of myself for biking to the bar for cocktails and tacos at 7pm on a Sunday rather than getting the Monday blog post done. And prepping meals for the next few days. And doing laundry. And checking off the endless to-do list that realistically will never be completed ever, no matter how many bike rides I pass on to sit inside and do things I won't look back and remember doing.

I wouldn't say I've been in a funk because a funk sounds negative; and this is totally not. I just feel different. I'm living my unicorn life! Let's call it having more...fun, freedom, drinks, spontaneity, soul, coffee walks, time with the people I love, Saturday hikes, me time, Sunday brunches, ice cream cones, and total permission to feel accepting of a lovelier, lazier, more delicious season of life.

I'm not gonna lie. Every Monday and Thursday that passed without publishing a blog post I felt a liiiiiittle less guilty and a liiiiiittle more proud of not being a slave to the structure and unnecessary expectations I put on myself. More love. Less pressure!

Present over perfect.

I choose to honor flexibility. And you should too! Flexibility in crushing those lofty goals, in nurturing your relationships, in making all the money all the time, in working out x days a week, in being a lemon lime popsicle when you want to be (or eat) a big fat sundae with homemade whipped cream really freaking badly.

Because at what point am I (are we?) working more for a better tomorrow at the expense of living today? I feel like I'm always telling myself to hustle my hiney off now for the next year or the next decade as if today doesn't matter. When did right now lose its meaning? I can't monetize the memories I'll have in five years; but I know for damn sure that they're worth more than the dollars I would've made had I spent that time over-working.

I could blame my absence on TRISM opening next week but I'd be lying. I'm not blogging less because we're opening a new restaurant. I'm blogging less simply because I'm living more.

And just like that I'M SO BLISSFULLY HAPPY! I love my job growing Alchemy and building TRISM from the ground up. I'm more passionate about the restaurants than I've ever been. I feel like we're really making a difference. I feel I'm making a difference. It's a weirdly freeing and wonderful feeling to feel so purposeful.

Don't doubt for a second that I have crazy-unconditional-mad-infinite-fierce love for this space. That said, it's been a humbling and somewhat unexpected experience to feel that same love toward things in life that didn't used to give me anywhere near the same joy. I'm working on putting my puzzle back together in a way that doesn't just fit, but makes me most excited about living.

I hope this endless rambling has resonated with you in some way. I hope you don't waste any time living a life that's not your own version of bliss. And by bliss I mean a beautiful, imperfect mess of what you find lovely. Don't over-work and under-live. Find your spark. Don't put tomorrow on a pedestal. There's never not going to be a tomorrow to work for. Don't underestimate the value of the memories and the magic you can't put a price tag on. That ish is priceless.

Go live your unicorn life!