It was the perfect Sunday that started with running a friends dogs in the morning, doing some life tasks then meeting a friend in the highlands at Prosper and Oats for an acaii bowl and then ended with a bike ride down to city park for the jazz concert with another friend.
Like any good story, this one starts with a call to an Uber. I should end the story right there and let you do the math. However, this Uber story doesn’t involve alcohol, drama or a dateline story that ends in my death from climbing into a car with a stranger. As I recently turned twenty-one and have started the lengthy process of growing up and becoming an adult, I made a trip to the DMV to get my new license. This is where Alfie comes in as he was my driver that Uber gave me. I decided to turn the tables on my driver and had a great conversation for seven minutes while also making a new friend. What more could you ask for?
I met Amber through a mutual friend in Boulder and got to know her over a night of playing scrabble, drinking beer and eating burgers at Mountain Sun. My initial impression of her was that she was one of the most poised and eloquent people I had ever met that equally embodied grace and kindness. A week later we were both invited to celebrate our mutual friends families birthday at the Gold Hill restaurant in Gold Hill, Colorado. We ended up sitting next to each other at the massive dinning table in the log cabin and before digging into our food and listening to live music, we talked life.
While in Hanoi, Vietnam I had a morning off from work and decided to meander around the city and see where my feet took me with no conscious plans in mind other than writing and enjoying the day. My feet ended up taking me through the twisted streets of the Old Quarter and up a floor to the balcony of a vegan restaurant where I sat perched outside writing and drinking a blended green juice. Wanting to capture the moment, I went back inside and asked the first person I saw (there were only four people there) if it would be okay if he took a picture for me. Here enters Trent. Trent was one of two bearded men in the restaurant (the other one was wearing plaid) and had he been there a moment too late or soon, I would have gone with the other lumberjack. I’m so glad Trent was there when he was. We soon discovered that we were one of the same and had kindred souls. I have never had a conversation with anyone ever where we immediately were thinking and conversing on the same wavelength. It was inspiring and a unicorn moment to say the least. After realising that Trent was a fascinating and compelling person after a hot minute, I asked if I could intentionally interview him.
After a rough last few weeks of school and finals week, I kicked off holiday break with a series of wonderful friends including old, new and same! It was great to catch up with friends from high school, show friends from college around Denver and indulge in delicious food and even better company.
Sharing with you our year of wander, wishing and wisdom (or lack of)!
Here’s to the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.
-Kaila
(click to read the full holiday letter if you wish)
LANGKAWI
After concluding my first year of college in early May and seeing friends off to the airport, I packed my bags and headed off to Malaysia with my dear Mother. Before entering college I had taken a gap year in Malaysia as a youth ambassador under the State Department and was ready to go back to visit friends and (host) families, while bringing my mother along for the ride. This trip was long waited and someday I will elaborate more on my experience in Malaysia before college.
It won’t stop popping up on my Facebook newsfeed, (actual) news sites and has been on my mind for the last few months. China has reversed it’s One-Child policy. A policy that is arguably the reason I am where I am today and who I am today. Before I continue further, some numbers according to BBCNews.
I am catching up on the past while trying to be in the present and planning for the future and its quite the overwhelming, but quintessential life experience and I love and hate it all at the same time.
Life is a series of events that none of us are ever fully prepared to experience. But we do. And that is the beauty and tragedy in it all. None of us can plan for anything when we can’t predict the future. We can only live in the now and make conscious decisions that move us to a positive future. As I catch up on the last few weeks of posts, I thought I would start by sharing one of the greatest set of days; the kind of day that you can’t plan for and just say yes to because you know that it is fleeting, magical and rare.
Kaila in the World 