LNOTS DBD

I often write blogs about how I’m feeling troubled,
Or frustrated,
Or how I’m turning lemons into a fancy cocktail, or a shot, or something to bleach my asshole with.

But I think that sometimes there are things in life that just make me feel good and I want to share those, too because I think that the visibility of how making others feels good hopefully gives people insights they may not have had before. Hopefully this spurs people into paying those little things forward.

One of my favorite co-workers texted me this morning from the mighty, majestic, Middlefork of the Salmon.

My favorite place on earth.

The place I think about every day. The place that runs through all my veins.

The text lit up my phone at 5:45 A.M. —”Coffee is ready!”

It immediately brings me to tears.

Partially because I miss it, but not because I am sad.

I immediately cry because it makes me feel missed, and seen, and reminds me why I grind so hard.

These little acts of kindness get me through the hard days of grad school. The days where I get my thesis draft edits back and feel like I’ve never written a sentence in my life.

I ask him to tell the middlefork I miss her. And the crew that I miss them.

I receive another text several hours later, “YES!! LNOTS DBD!”
(Last night of the season: Double breakdown day)

I feel an overwhelming sense of love and protection knowing that the people and places I love exist safely and that I can love them from here , and that this love is mutually felt.

As someone who tries to exist in two very separate spaces, I sometimes long for the other and question why I’m not all in or out of each one.

As someone who knows what it feels like to love both and know I am making the right decision in both spaces — These two simple texts mean the world to me.