To live for the hope of it all

Every year, without fail, August rolls around and suddenly I'm driving with the windows down even if it's way too hot outside, convincing myself that this year feels different. Taylor Swift's August somehow captures that weird feeling of being nostalgic for something while you're still living it. 

I think that's why I love it so much. Your twenties are full of "almosts." Almost knowing who you are. Almost feeling settled. Almost finding your people. Almost falling in love. Almost having your life together. Everything feels like it's on the edge of becoming something, and sometimes that's exciting... and sometimes it's exhausting.

I think that's what "to live for the hope of it all" means to me. It's waking up believing that maybe this is the month something changes. Maybe this is the season you finally feel like yourself, maybe you'll meet someone who stays, maybe you'll land the job, move into the apartment, make the friends, and heal from the thing you swore would always hurt.

 Hope can make you look a little delusional. But I'd rather be hopeful than cynical.

I think August itself feels like that too. It's caught between two seasons. Summer isn't over, but you can feel it slipping away. Target has school supplies out, Starbucks is teasing fall drinks, and somehow everyone collectively decides it's time to romanticize their lives again. It's a month that feels like it's holding its breath and I've always loved that. 

Maybe that's why this song finds me every single year. It reminds me that life isn't always made up of huge milestones. Sometimes it's made up of little moments where you're simply hoping. Hoping next month is lighter. Hoping you'll become the version of yourself you've been working toward. Hoping all the waiting is actually leading somewhere. I used to think hope was something you had until life gave you certainty. Now I think hope is the whole point.

Because one day we'll look back on these years and realize we weren't just waiting for life to begin. We were already in it. The late-night drives, the iced coffees, the overthinking, the laughing with friends, the bad dates, the random Tuesday afternoons, the dreams that hadn't happened yet...This was life.

So here's to August. To being twenty-something and not having all the answers. To believing good things can still happen even when you don't know when. To living for the hope of it all.

And maybe that's enough.

♡ Ashley