Paths Found, Paths Taken
I recently met a woman for the first time in-person after being each other’s hype-ladies for years online.
Neither of us could remember exactly how our paths crossed or explain why we were always in each other’s corners despite not really knowing one another. It just kind of happened, naturally.
There was something about her that made me genuinely think I want to be her friend; she seems like the kind of person I want to surround myself with.
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After a work event concluded, my dear friend Amber met me in LA for a few days. And oh manzzz did we live our best lives—except for the car getting towed, that was not best-life-living. We chalked it up to a fluke in the system and didn’t let it get to us. 🤷🏻♀️
We planned our adventures to perfection.
We booked a private chauffeur (Alejandro, the ultimate hype man) to take us from Santa Monica to Malibu in a vintage VW bus, taking stops along the way for history lessons and iPhone photoshoots. Ended the adventure with a wine tasting at a Malibu winery. 10/10 would recommend.
We painted the town red all along Abbot Kinney Blvd.
I was tattooed by a sexy tattoo artist. The sexy man part was not planned but was definitely appreciated ;) .
Amber got a life-changing dress.
We snatched reservations at a premiere rooftop restaurant.
We stayed in a West Hollywood GEM of a house perched up in the hills.
We hiked a breathtaking trail at Runyon Canyon.
As the California-experience-sharing was in full force, I got a message from Destiny (the social media babe) saying she lives in San Diego and we should meet up. Now, at the time she messaged me, she didn’t know I was coming to San Diego in a few days yet she was willing to make it happen one way or another.
I was like “YES. PLEASEEEE!”
We were committed to carving time in our respective calendars to finally meet, hug, get to know each other, and fire each other up IRL.
It was glorious.
The three of us met up for a fancy-ass dinner and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was electric. We talked about manifestation, healthy work/life environments and balances, creating a life of abundance. You know, just those simple topics of conversation that you have with someone you met an hour prior, right? And we did it all while eating food with ingredients we could hardly pronounce and sipping on drinks with fancy garnishes.
I share all of this for several reasons. One, I made this happen on my own. I didn’t wait for someone to invite me or put together a detailed schedule so I could show up and take it in without putting in the foot work. Two, I grew up comfortably, but lavish dinners were rarely on the menu. Three, as my boss Susan Hyatt says, “create what you crave.” And that’s exactly what I/we did, we created what we craved.
We craved the connections.
We craved the experiences.
We craved the adventures.
Had I not put in any effort for any of the above, I’d still be sitting in my office chair behind my computer screen, craving those connections and adventures instead of experiencing and growing from them.
For me, it wasn’t so much the paths-less-travelled but rather the paths-we-forged. And that had made all the difference.
XO,'
HMC
