second year jennings brooks

I’m not living my best life. My life is fine - I mean, it’s normal and suitable for me. I may not be bundled up by a crackling fire of old logs set in some five-star ski and spa resort with an alpaca fur cap resting atop my perfectly blown-out hair, but I am pursuing the every day dream and honor of living my life.

I’m finding myself waking up daily to a monotonous routine: working on school, working out, working on growing, living presently and loving fully. These moments may not make me Instagram famous, but they make me real. They make me someone of substance - someone who struggles in the slow moments, in the times of process, and someone who blindly blunders around until the next big Instagram-able life moment.

No one is exempt from the human experience of life; instead our day to day lives are the days we truly end up living. These other moments, the ones that may make for the most viewed Snapchat stories, are really just experiences that will pass us by like the rest.

But the special memories, those are the moments that tend to slip right past us even before we realize we had missed them. It’s listening to a favorite playlist on the bus ride home. It’s receiving an unexpected hug. It’s reading on North Campus in a rare patch of winter sunshine. These are the minutes we are meant to live, breathing them into our very being with the intentionality of each lung we fill.

These are the days when I live my best life. My life doesn’t wear me like an expensive overcoat, to be flaunted and admired; I wear it. Each moment is a patch I sew by hand onto my eclectic denim jacket of life experience. It’s unique, it’s special, and it’s mine. These are the monastic moments, the hardly exceptional experiences, that make me human. These are the moments in which I feel most fulfilled, living my best life

Living My Best Life