March is a month of unpredictabilities, of high expectations and little return.

Me, in my home, with my plants, my partner, my books, my youth—I turned 25 today.

I've started finding symbolism and meaning in the smallest of things, almost bordering on superstition, so I wanted to start my twenty-sixth year out in a way that felt calm and meaningful. I woke up early this morning, showered, made the bed, drank two glasses of water, and tidied the apartment. I listened to Verdi's Rigoletto on the radio, walked slowly to the train, and read a few Mary Oliver poems on my ride to work. Everything felt fresh and intentional, like seeing through an altered lens, a slightly altered lens. Nothing has changed, really—only in my mind, and only because I welcomed it; I invented it.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.  

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.  

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

- Excerpt from When Death Comes by Mary Oliver