Life is a Playlist and I'm Gonna Listen to it All Night Long.

We've all experienced that moment when a random song comes on and suddenly you're transported back to a time that prior to those notes beating, felt far away. A memory that feels so distant, you now regularly never even recall it. It isn't until those notes and lyrics take over, and then you're back there.

You're back feeling the moments of those first dates together. You're driving in your first car with the windows down. You're at your cubicle of your first job. You're celebrating your best friends decent into marriage. You're dancing like you own the club on your 25th birthday. You're happy. You're sad. You're broken. You're healed.

No matter what the memory evokes, as the music plays on, we remember with certainty that it is in fact, a memory. It's a cherished moment from the past. We sit here right now with new songs playing that will one day create the framework around the time that is this moment.

In fact, there's an entire playlist of songs I have yet to hear. Listening to a song from one of yesterdays soundtracks, lets out a nostalgic tone along with the reminder that music keeps playing and all we have to do is listen and enjoy.

Life Lessons from International Brides

As a bridal consultant and stylist, I get to interact with brides during one of their most anticipated and exciting parts of the wedding planning process....finding the dress.

While the focus quite obviously is placed on the details of dress style and fit, my favorite question to ask the bride is how she and her fiance met. It's those stories that shed light into them as a couple and varying degrees of inspiration into my daily life.

A couple of my international brides threw down some real world knowledge somewhere in-between trying on drop-waisted ball-gowns and the Atlantic ocean.

Little Italy

The highlight of my day was working with an Italian bride who spoke very little English. Her mother who accompanied her spoke, exactly two words - "Yes," and "No." Both English words pronounced in the most Italian way possible.

Though the bride currently lives in Florida, the wedding would be in Italy and with no surprise, would require satin fabrics and lots of beading.

As this little Bella stood in a fitted Cristiano Lucci gown, I asked how she met her fiance, who I had earlier learned, was also Italian.

Through broken yet simultaneously impressive English, she explained how she came to Florida on a trip to attend her Aunts baby shower a year ago and he was there.

I laughed and replied, "So each of you had to travel from Italy to Florida to meet?"

She smiled, making a huge hand gesture, opening her hands and arms, and said with jovial conviction, "Life!"


Not at all sharing the same language, it was both funny and heart-warming, to have had one word say so much.

To Egypt with Love

I worked with a bride from Egypt recently. Her fiance is still there while she has been living in Florida for two years now. She hopes when they marry, he'll move here.

When I asked why she moved here, she simply said: "For a better life."

It reminded me that despite a lot of things we may dislike or disagree with in our country and government, it still largely remains a place known for being a destination for freedom, for something better, and a place where when you dream of something, there's a real possibility you'll achieve it.

My Favorite Totally Rad Yet Totally Unrealistic NYC Apartments for Almost Anyone

Sex and the City

Oh, the classic female NYC apartment fantasy. Carrie Bradshaw's $750 a month rent controlled apartment was the backdrop for contemplative moments and numerous male overnight guests. Of course, who can forget her lavish bathroom with not one, but two bathroom doors? You know, just in case she sees an intruder in the mirror, she's "vroom!"out the other door!

The Mindy Project

This OBGYN's apartment is what IKEA leads us to believe ours will look like if we buy that brightly colored couch and matching coffee table. Ultimately, in our swedish meatball driven reality, it turns out looking more like a college student in transition rather than city woman chic. Regardless, I will accept a sleepover invite from Dr. Lahiri any day.

27 Dresses

Katherine Heigl regularly lives in fashionably cozy abodes on the big screen but while working the wedding circuit, her living quarters were exceptionally swoon worthy. I mean, a window seat? Really?

Friends with Benefits

I literally don't even know where to start. If it isn't enough to be best friends and loooove-uuuuh's with Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis' character also gets to live in the shabby chicest place I've ever seen. Her home is a decorative journal full of eccentric keepsakes I'm sure she's collected while traveling the world.

How I Met Your Mother

I don't think I'm the only one who wasn't upset to hear that Rachel Bilson's character, Cindy was not the mystery mother. Although, after her short appearance on the show, I did miss seeing this idyllic twenty something's apartment. So many colors and patterns yet, it works!

Do what feels right, right now.

So often, we create this idea in our minds of where we want to end up. With that image, we often neglect to acknowledge how where we're at now, may be exactly the right place for us in order to get to that desired destination.

Last year, I was dead set on packing up and moving to New York City.

I had never anticipated ending up with a Florida address. Yet, I accepted a temporary gig with a certain major shopping destination and didn't hesitate.

I kept saying, "it feels right, for right now."

I stayed in that temporary position for three months and just as I began to itch for something more challenging, an internal position opened. Attracted to this new strategic role, I interviewed and was officially offered a permanent position.

Today was my first day in this new role. It felt fresh, exciting, and so fitting right now.

What if we managed to focus less on the outcome of situations and instead more on being in a place that feels right for right now?

Maybe then we wouldn't worry and try to plan so much about what will come next. Instead, we'll just be in the right place and mindset to receive it as it unfolds with us.

A New Year, A New Intention.

For the past couple years, I declared an intention instead of a resolution. The year 2012 was self-declared my “year of authenticity.” I wanted to make choices based on what was best for me. I would spend my time for me. I would honor my truth. 

As I reflect back on to 2012, I can confidently say, that overall, 2012 kicked my ass. 

I was challenged in ways I would have never imagined. I experienced life changes I had not expected.

In the end though, 2012 was full of greatness and my intention was honored. I learned more than I anticipated about what it means to be authentic, honor my truth, and understand and act on what's best for me. It took almost a year but I realized that's okay too. Sometimes things don't unravel as we expect. Some lessons take longer to learn and sometimes it's that process that's needed to point us to our lessons.

As I prepare for a new year, I have set a new intention.

The year 2013 will be my year of experience!

I will be mindful of every experience and truly live in it. The challenging, sad, jubilant, frustrating, lonely, new, exciting, and colorful moments will all be truly experienced.

So often, it's easy to just go through the motions, brush off our low points, and focus too much on the future or past. Everything I do and everything that happens in 2013, I will give myself permission to just experience, free of judgement. 

My New Years Eve wish for you is that 2012 is closed with a blessing and 2013 embraced with an intention that suits you.

Happy New Year!

And now a few of my memorable moments from 2012....

Yoga retreat in Costa Rica 

Surfing for the first time and making it to shore in Costa Rica! 

  

Visiting lifelong friendships and remembering that they are only a plane ride away sometimes. 

Loosing my job of almost four years...

...landing a new job. 

Packing everything up to move from the familiar to the unknown.

Signing on for a new adventure with a Florida address.

Letting go of relationships that no longer served my highest good and being blessed with new relationships full of love, spirit, support, and plain silliness. 

Happy New Years! May 2013 be more than you anticipate. 

Your Heart Too, Will Go On.

I was sitting in a coffee shop the other day and overheard three girls chat about their lives. Which at 17, almost always only consists of boys and relationships. 

"I don't know what I would do without him. Honestly, I don't know if I could be happy without him," Coffee Girl said. 

Hearing her, I reminisced back to my first relationship and recalled how the heartache can be so palpable you feel it in every muscle and with each breathe. 

Heartache doesn't lessen or get easier to handle with age and experience. It still hurts and the bathroom floor is still a place you end up on at 1:00AM with a piece of overly used Kleenex. 

With every break up however, you do experience enhanced endurance, resilience, and a wee bit of wisdom. 

Having gone through a few breakup's myself, I can vow that each one proves to yourself, that you can not only survive a break up but you can also thrive after one. 

I'm sure your boyfriend is great Coffee Girl. (That's not true. He may be a real douche bag but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt). In the chance that it doesn't work out, know you will in fact be happy again. Sure, you will cry, feel moments of despair, and dramatically threaten to go rescue a cat to start the collection that will eventually run rampant in your knitting filled and potpourri infused home.  

But one day, a moment will enter where you feel the smallest tinge of what you can only recall as happiness. Little by little, these moments will string together before you're eventually just living your life again, happily. 

Thursday Night and Thoughts of Frank.

via

"Modigliani. Your first summer in New York City, you were dating a guy who worked on Wall Street ...this was around the time you discovered Modigliani and became obsessed with his painting of this woman who had a blue scarf on, holding a baby. You said, 'That painting captured the essence of that woman better than any photograph.' I also remember you freaked because you said you felt more passionate about that painting than you did about Mr.Wall Street and you wondered if you ever could meet somebody that could make you feel as passionate as that work of art." -Made of Honor

I remember being about thirteen years old and dancing in my bedroom to a mix CD full of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. I loved how magical all the songs felt. They breathed lives lived. They carried adventure, emotion, and promise. Letting each note flow over me, I could envision how one day I'd dance a life fit to be accompanied by such melodies.

As we get older, it's easier to hear sounds of reality play over the notes which first inspired us. We discover unpaid loans, relationships with varying and sometimes challenging traits, bill payment due dates, food that actually has the potential to turn into fat, that traveling includes costs along with adventure, doctors sometime deliver bad news, and restless minds make for restless nights. 

In the mist of it all, we have the ability to hear a song and travel back to a familiar melody and nostaligic memory. It can remind us how passionate and ambitious we are at heart. It should encourage us to grab onto that feeling, aspiring to acheive at least that much. Find something in life; a book, film, piece of artwork, or song. Let it push you to crave better things in your life and be sure to turn up the volume.