The Office Depot Parking Lot - a poem

A little different from what I normally share, I definitely feel vulnerable putting this one out there, but, there it is. I wrote this poem awhile ago, when we were still getting flurries of snow, in winter 2016. I came across it recently when I was having a kind of harder day and it helped me to get my mind right and pick myself back up. Perhaps you'll find the same ❤

​The snow feels extremely special to me today. 
I love that it is different 
and how it's making me slow down and look around 
and appreciate things differently. 

I found myself starting to get upset following a driver today
​going 10 miles per hour under the speed limit.  
I'm glad I caught myself and was able to laugh and brush it off. 
I remember when I first got home from my nine months of traveling
Even riding in the car again, let alone driving, was so surreal. 
I'd barely been in a car for the past year. 
I remember feeling like I could just take my time getting anywhere 
because it was so straightforward and I was in control, 
absolutely no reason to rush. 
Similar to no reason to rush when you are not in control traveling
​via bus or train, by the way.

But it got me to thinking about slowing down
and how grateful I am for my travels 
to be able to look around at our crazy chaotic stressful
fast-paced United States living lifestyles
and feel an immense amount of warmth in my heart
​knowing that this is not the way life is meant to be 
and it is not the way that everyone is living. 

I sit in my car and I look around me
it looks like the snow is just pouring down, 
cars are stacking up in the middle of the intersections, 
people are getting impatient and honking their horns. 
I pull into the Office Depot parking lot 
and everyone is running for the door or back to their cars 
a car even pulled up to let somebody out right in front 
despite the parking lot being nearly empty. 

I sit in my car and I gaze up through my sunroof and I notice 
how slow and soft every single snowflake is falling.  
I get out of my car and I walk across the parking lot 
and the flakes tickle my face - there's no way I can't smile!
I gaze up into the flakes as I walk, watching them fall,
even catching a couple in my mouth 
skipping ahead a step to catch a giant one in my hand. 

I look around. 
No one's watching. 
No one is around.

This is the simplicity of life that I am talking about. 
I don't even want to use the word Priceless, but oh my God, 
how incredibly priceless feeling it is to instantly
be thrown back to the age of five again,
to just feel like a kid again, 
​walking across the freaking Office Depot parking lot! 

This is the simplicity of life that we all overlook. 
we get caught up on having to get the house perfect for our guests, 
make sure that we get all of the presents, hoping that we either spend enough 
or that the person likes it enough. 

when was the last time you stopped to realize that you are enough right now? 
If you don't feel like you are enough right now
if you feel like you don't have enough right now 
what better time than right now to start shifting your perspective dear friend? 

It's time to wake up. 
I'm looking for you. 
It's lonely here 
when I find myself back in this place, 
the beautiful simplicity. 
It brings tears to my eyes to feel such loneliness 
in such a beautiful place. 
But, oh thank the universe, for showing me my way, 
I am blessed for the path that I have been given, 
The one in 4 trillion chance to become a human being in the first place
I'd rather be awake and alone
than not awake at all 
and that's something that I desperately need to remember.