It’s only 11:22 in the morning and my mind is racing. It’s been such a heart and tear-filled morning, and as if my emotions weren’t high already in the gratitude, love, and happiness I’ve been lucky to experience these past few days, this morning was just the icing on the cake.

Though I did not know her, I learned of my friends’ friend who passed away not long ago. As we finished our Friday hill run, tears filled our eyes as we acknowledged the delicacy of life, the value of connection and the impermanence of things great and small. We sniffled as we took a moment to soak it up and most of all, to remember to be kind to one another. What was to be a mad dash home to more dashing around the house to get ready for a full day turned into a slow saunter to Tartine Bakery where I met a new friend. It felt so wrong to head home without taking a moment to live in the moment. So that’s what I did. I got ready for the day with a different intention and a lot more patience (seems to be a theme this week for me). I arrived to work an hour later than usual and as one who is usually the first one in the office, I figured I owed myself this time to spend a morning exactly as I wanted – listening to another’s story, make meaningful eye-contact, light-hearted laughter about date deal-breakers, and enjoy a good cup of coffee.

Last night, I met up with two friends who made me laugh real laughs. I got a text from Date 2 (yes, still going strong!), who I will here on out just call ‘dat date, okay scratch that (been listening to a lot of hip hop this morning)…how about “Date”? Date texted me a sweet message, I ran into a friend from my running group, and enjoyed a Helles beer on a warm San Francisco summer night in a biergarten. With a backseat filled with deconstructed furniture and potted plants, we piled on laps in the car to head home well past my self-set bedtime to wake up semi-rested to my 5:15am alarm. I did not go to bed at a reasonable hour, but I did have blast and wake up in time to run in the dark morning to meet fellow runners en route to our to-be-tackled-hill. Do I get the half-point for being a responsible adult?

Tangent. Queen of those.

I guess what I’m thinking a lot about is how fun life can be when you let it. How it’s super important to be gentle with yourself, and to be gentle with others. You never know what lay behind someone, what lies ahead. All you do know is what lies here. Make it good, make it meaningful, make it anything but fleeting.