personal growth – Budget Bliss: Bucket List

Keep the Thing You Love Useless

Published on June 13, 2026June 13, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

Dear readers, I have been in the midst of an ADHD hyperfixation.

Poetry.

For the past three months, I have been utterly consumed—writing forty-plus poems in three months, which even I have to admit is a slightly absurd amount of poetry

Now, I shalln’t subject you to the entirety of the collection. However, I have shared a few with friends and family, who have begun to gently (and not so gently) encourage me to seek publication. After all, it seems such a shame that such a collection should simply languish on my desktop.

Suddenly, a list of journals sits before me, complete with deadlines looming and pressure quietly building. Some even come with significant cash prizes if the poems are selected.

Isn’t that just the way of hobbies?

The crocheter is asked when she’s opening an Etsy shop. The painter is asked if they’ve considered the local gallery. The yoga enthusiast is told they should teach. The baker is suddenly “volunteered” for every birthday cake in a five-mile radius. And the poet, inevitably, is encouraged to submit to journals.

And it sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?

We are constantly told to pursue our passions. To follow what we love. To “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” A beautiful idea. And also… a slightly suspicious one. Because somewhere along the way, we stopped asking whether turning everything we love into something productive might quietly change the thing itself.

There was once an experiment with children who loved to draw. They were divided into groups—one received an external reward for drawing, the other did not.

The result was surprisingly consistent: the group that drew without reward maintained their interest. The group that drew for the reward lost motivation over time. And the group that received an unexpected reward? They also maintained their enjoyment.

In other words: motivation thrives not on chasing reward, but on the absence of needing one. We are most creatively alive when we are not negotiating with outcomes.

Another study, this time with adults, found something equally odd. One group completed a deliberately dull task before being asked to solve creative problems. The group that had just done the “boring” task actually produced more creative solutions.

Which is funny, because some of my best poetry has never arrived at a desk. It arrives while driving. While walking. While weeding the garden or cleaning something I definitely didn’t want to clean. It arrives when the conscious mind is occupied just enough to step aside.

But that kind of mental spaciousness is hard to come by when every hour is accounted for, optimized, monetized, or squeezed into productivity. And that’s where hobbies quietly begin to change shape. Because turning a hobby into a side hustle sounds empowering—until it isn’t.

At first, it’s just sharing something you love. Then it becomes selling something you love. Then it becomes needing to sell something you love. Then it becomes needing to make something people will buy. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the question shifts from: “What do I want to make?” to “What will perform well?” The hobby is still there. But the play is not. And without play, something essential quietly drains out of the work. Not always immediately. Not dramatically. But steadily—like a color fading from fabric left in too much sun.

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The uncomfortable truth is that most side hustles do not pay nearly as much as we imagine they will. Often, the return is small compared to the time invested. Sometimes it amounts to a few dollars an hour—or less—once everything is accounted for.

Which would be fine, if the primary goal was joy. But when the goal becomes income, validation, or traction… the relationship changes. We stop being in conversation with the thing we love. And start being evaluated by it. And I think that is the part we rarely say out loud: Not everything we love is meant to be optimized. Not everything we create is meant to scale. And not everything beautiful needs to become a business plan.

Sometimes the point is simply that it exists at all. Sometimes the point is that it made you feel alive while you were making it. And perhaps the real danger is not that we fail to monetize our passions… But that we succeed in doing so, and lose the ability to enjoy them without permission. So for now, I remain in my poetry hyperfixation. Not as a product. Not as a strategy. Just as a person who has been, for a while, deeply interested in making things that do not need to become anything else.

Oh do not get me wrong, dear reader, I will submit things to journals here and there, but not for any other reason than to put them out into the world. But mostly, I shall continue to focus on having fun.

Photo by betu00fcl nur akyu00fcrek on Pexels.com

The Lost Art of Becoming a Regular

Published on May 31, 2026May 31, 2026 by BudgetBliss

When Life Only Happens in Big Moments

Published on May 16, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that does not come from doing too much, but from feeling like your life only really happens in rare bursts. Oh certainly vacations, “milestones”, trips and celebrations are all well and good. After all these are the “big moments” which make everything else feel worth it. Or are they?

Because if that’s true then….everything in between starts to feel like waiting. Waiting for the next thing that will make life feel real again.

I think, in some quiet way, many of us fall into this pattern without noticing it. We begin to outsource our sense of aliveness to future events. We tell ourselves, I’ll feel better when I travel, or when this season is over, or when things finally calm down, or when I get to that version of my life that feels more like mine. And slowly, without meaning to, the present becomes something we are simply passing through.Not living in. Just moving through.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with looking forward to things. Anticipation is a form of joy. But there is a difference between anticipation that enriches your life and anticipation that replaces it. One expands your experience. While the other quietly erases it.

Modern life does not exactly discourage this pattern. If anything, it reinforces it. We are surrounded by highlight reels, curated moments, and constant reminders of what life could look like if we were elsewhere, doing something else, being someone slightly different. So it becomes very easy to believe that life is happening over there rather than here or now. I am tempted dear reader to quote Yoda when he was talking to Luke Skywalker “All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.” Forgive me there are just some temptations I cannot deny.

If you are not careful, your ordinary days begin to feel like maintenance. Something to get through. Something to manage. Something to endure until the next meaningful thing arrives. But a life that only feels real in its highlights is a fragile kind of life. Because highlights are, by definition, rare. And everything else is where you actually live.

This is where the trouble starts. Not in the big moments themselves, but in the assumption that they are the only moments that matter. Because if that is true, then most of your life becomes a kind of emotional outsourcing. You send your sense of meaning elsewhere and wait for it to return in concentrated form. A weekend. A trip. A breakthrough. A celebration. A “milestone” (whatever those actually are).

And in between those moments, you are left with everything else. The ordinary. The repetitive. The unglamorous structure of being a person who still has to answer emails and wash dishes and figure out what dinner is going to be. It is easy to dismiss those moments as unimportant. But they are not the exception to your life. They are your life where you wish to admit that or not.

And this is where things begin to shift, because once you notice this pattern, you start to see how much of life is not actually made of peaks, but of repetition. The same mornings. The same responsibilities. The same quiet routines that shape your days more than any single highlight ever will. So the question becomes not how to eliminate the big moments, but how to stop abandoning your life in the meantime.

Because a life worth living cannot only be something you visit occasionally. It has to be something you can exist inside of. Something that does not require escape in order to feel bearable. This does not mean every moment must be exciting or meaningful in a dramatic sense. That would be its own kind of pressure.

Instead, it might mean learning to notice what is already here, even in its simplicity. The small textures of a day that is not special, but is still yours. The way light comes through a window. The rhythm of familiar tasks. The quiet continuity of being alive without anything particularly remarkable happening.

And sometimes, it means gently asking yourself what you are waiting for. Not in a harsh way. Not as judgment. But as awareness. Because often, when we are honest, we are not waiting for one specific thing. We are waiting for life itself to begin feeling like it counts.

If you’ve ever watched or read the play “Our Town” there is a specific scene in which a woman, Emily Webb, has died in childbirth and asks to go back to relive parts of her life. She’s warned not to pick a big day like her wedding because it will be too much. No, she’s told to pick a quite ordinary day and so she picks her birthday as a young girl. She is immediately overwhelmed by how young and beautiful her mother looks, but she is instantly struck by a painful realization. The living are moving too fast, completely caught up in the routine details of the day. When her mother hands her a birthday gift without truly pausing to look at her, Emily experiences a rush of grief. She sees that human beings are blind to the preciousness of the present moment, treating time as if they have a million years to waste.

How often do we live that way? How many times do we not really look at one another and savor the small moments of connection?

But life is not waiting for permission to be meaningful. It already is happening. Even here. Even now. Even in the in-between.

“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?” – Emily Webb “Our Town”

So perhaps the invitation is not to chase fewer big moments, but to stop outsourcing your aliveness to them. To let the big moments be a part of your life, not the place where your life finally starts. And to remember, gently, that a life well lived is not built in rare highlights. It is built in the ordinary days you stop overlooking.

Opening the Tupperware

Published on May 2, 2026June 13, 2026 by BudgetBliss1 Comment

I think it is fair, dear reader, to believe that there are many of you who have gone through trials and tribulations in this life. It is also fair to believe that there are many of you who have not made it through those trials unscathed. You may think that you are irreparably broken from the experience. I assure you, you are not. You are probably quite resilient and resourceful. However, you may not yet realize it and I do not think you are entirely to blame.

Something that frequently irritates me is the media’s depiction of healing. A character suffering from PTSD suddenly has a realization that they are able to face their fears and suddenly the flashbacks stop. A story about a girl grieving the loss of her mother goes back to being happy by writing a letter, stuffing it in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. Healing is done through a flashbulb moment, a small act or a one time therapy session with a counselor. So when we have our flashbulb moments, take those small acts and go to counseling and we still aren’t “fixed”, we begin to wonder if we will ever be healed. Because why wouldn’t we question our ability to heal when the narrative we’ve been given is that it’s quick and easy.

It’s like everything else in our society, we want a quick solution without a lot of effort. Take this shot, you’ll lose weight. Play this game for 10 minutes a day and you’ll be fluent in Spanish months! Go to counseling for a few sessions and your trauma will be cured. And you won’t ever have a set back again!

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The truth is that isn’t how healing works. It’s a messy, difficult and sometimes frustrating process. It’s taking what feels like three steps forward only to fall five steps back and then have to walk three steps forward to have taken one actual step. It’s like cleaning out the refrigerator where you have to open the old tupperware knowing that you’re about to discover what might be the start of new intelligent life because you’ve allowed it to evolve for so long. No one wants to open the tupperware to see what’s inside and unlike the tupperware you don’t have the option to just throw the whole thing in the trash. You have to open it up and deal with whatever you find, no matter how unpleasant.

Emotions, unfortunately, require care and ignoring them doesn’t make them go away. Because when we turn off our ability to feel the negative emotions, we also turn off our ability to feel positive emotions. That’s why we can end up feeling emotionally numb even when the difficult times are over and we don’t understand why we can’t be happy now. No one wants to sit in the negative emotions. We often jump to problem solving or attempting to reason with them rather than simply sit and hold space for whatever may be there.

You don’t want to face it because it’s not enjoyable but the only way to the other side is through it. Not once, not twice but again and again and again. Because processing once often isn’t enough, not with more complex and complicated issues. If it were, you could just write a journal entry and be on with your life. What really sucks is when you you think you’re good only to get into a situation many years later where you’re triggered all over again. So you take deep breaths, count out 5 things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste – an excellent grounding technique. You remind yourself that you’re in the present and that what you’re responding to is in the past. It’s followed by the frustration of not being “over it”, forgetting that our emotional minds aren’t subject to logic or even the constraints of time.

If you aren’t going through something then chances are you know someone who is and it can be tempting to try and fix the problem. Remember your presence is all that is required to let them know that they aren’t alone.

If you find yourself overwhelmed in your healing journey, I recommend reaching out to your supports and consider expanding your support system as well whether that be a therapist, counselor, life coach, priest, etc.

This isn’t a post about how to heal, but rather about being kind to yourself in the process. Healing isn’t linear nor is grief. It’s a process that’s often circular, confusing and paradoxical. Which is, honestly, the human experience. In living a life well lived, taking the time to allow ourselves to feel the full spectrum instead of trying to rush through it can be one of the best things you can do because healing takes time.

Paris, Part 5: A Perfectly Imperfect Weekend

Published on April 22, 2026June 7, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

The day was winding down. The museum had closed, and the sun was beginning its slow descent. Erika and I stepped out into the cool, crisp spring air, the kind that carries just a hint of evening chill beneath the fading warmth of the day.

The urgency that had driven us, our mad dashes across the city, our constant checking of maps, began to dissolve. In its place came something softer. A quiet curiosity. Without a list to check off, we were once again free to fully embrace the moment.

We wandered without purpose through streets washed in dusky light, watching as Paris slowly stirred to life for the night. Café lights flickered on one by one. The low hum of conversation drifted out onto the sidewalks. Glasses clinked. Laughter rose and fell like a tide.

Paris, it seemed, was just waking up.

It was in this gentle wandering that we met Julian and his girlfriend, Sandra.

They asked what had brought us to Paris, and we answered in kind. Soon, we were deep in conversation, trading stories of our lives, ours in America, theirs in Paris. There is a certain kind of fleeting camaraderie that forms in moments like these, where neither side expects permanence, and yet both lean fully into the connection.

For a few hours, we were simply part of one another’s stories.

They led us to a club, one far removed from anything we had originally planned.

It was the sort of place where locals belonged, where the rhythm of the night pulsed differently. It was tucked along a street. Do not ask me where, for I doubt I could find it again. With a nod from Julian to the bouncer, we slipped inside, crossing an invisible threshold into another version of Paris.

The air was warm and thick with music. The dim light created an intimate atmosphere like it was holding a secret only Parisians knew. We sipped wine and talked, our voices rising to meet the hum of the crowd as the hours stretched on.

And then, suddenly, the room erupted.

A woman appeared, dressed in something delightfully eccentric, a candle balanced atop her head (and I am not entirely sure if her chest was bare, she had on quite the number of necklaces). She sang loudly, joyfully, with a theatrical abandon, moving with a confidence that demanded attention. The crowd joined her instantly, clapping, singing, cheering.

Sandra leaned in to tell us it was her birthday.

It was not how I would have chosen to celebrate, but who was I to question a Parisian in her element?

As the night wore on, exhaustion crept in, the kind that settles deep in your bones after days of walking, of seeing, of feeling everything all at once.

Reluctantly, we apologized and said our goodbyes.

We exchanged Facebook information with every intention of keeping in touch. But as life so often goes, we never did.

Some things, perhaps, are meant to remain exactly where they happened.

In Paris.

Back at the hostel, I checked my email and confirmed our meeting place with Frieman.

The next morning, we set out once more into the city, this time successfully finding him. Though we did not have long together, we lingered over lunch, swapping stories and savoring the flavors of a city that had already given us so much. He drew me a small Eiffel Tower on a napkin, the perfect memento of my trip.

After lamenting our struggles with the metro, Frieman kindly took the time to explain it to us. Confident now, we set off to retrieve our luggage before catching our train.

We followed his directions carefully.

At least, we thought we did.

Emerging from the metro into the bright spring afternoon, we found ourselves somewhere entirely unexpected.

The red light district.

We stood there for a moment, taking it in, the bold storefronts, the neon signs, the unapologetic nature of it all.

Then we looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Never one to miss an opportunity, I leaned in and said, with what I hoped was convincing innocence, “Well… since we’re here, and we’re both engaged, we may as well find something memorable for the honeymoon.”

Smirking and trying not to laugh too loudly, we stepped into a shop and that may or may not have been our only stop.

What exactly we purchased shall remain between Erika and me, and left to your imagination, dear reader.

But we did make certain to stop for a picture in front of the Moulin Rouge before making our way back to the hostel… and eventually, to the train. Only stopping a few times to ask for directions from bemused shop owners.

All in all, it was a weekend in Paris well spent.

A true bucket list adventure, full of mishap and magic, art and laughter, wine and wandering, fleeting friendships and unexpected stories.

And perhaps that is what travel is meant to be.

Not a perfect itinerary.

But a collection of moments, some planned, many not, that come together to form something far richer than anything we could have designed ourselves.

Want to discover more adventures? Check out my whole Bucket List and Reverse Bucket List

If the Mask Came Off, Would You Recognize Yourself?

Published on March 27, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

We live in a digital age where we can curate our lives to project an idea of who we are into the world. Are we bubbly and outgoing? Sophisticated and refined? We can place almost any lens or filter over our photos and our lives. With artificial intelligence, that line blurs even further. We can compose music, generate art, write entire essays, and pass them off as our own. We can feed in a photo and receive a picture-perfect version in return.

All of it in pursuit of likes and comments.
All of it for confirmation that we are enough.

Which is what we’re all striving for, isn’t it?

It becomes easy to let these illusions shape our identity. The mask we wear for acceptance begins to fuse with who we are. Much like The Mask, it clings to us until we can no longer separate it from our face. And without it, we’re not entirely sure who we are.

Maybe when you were younger, your father took you to baseball games. You wore the jersey, learned the lingo, found community in the crowd. When he asked if you wanted to play, you said yes. You spent your childhood in a sport that never quite fit, quietly forgetting about the gymnastics class you once wanted to try. When the Olympics came on, you changed the channel rather than sit with the ache in your chest as athletes flipped and soared with ease.

After all, that’s not what earns a high five from Dad.
That’s not what earns acceptance.

Or maybe you were told you were too loud, so you became soft. Too much, so you became small. You watched a sibling get scolded for being wild, so you became controlled, composed. You saw a parent retreat when overwhelmed, so you learned to hide your emotions. You absorbed opinions about “the kind of people” who go to college or work with their hands, and somewhere along the way, your own desires got quieter.

Without the judgment of others, who are we?
What do we actually like?
What are our passions?

If no one were watching, what would we choose?
If no one were clapping, what would we keep?

Deciding to live authentically is not a small thing. Especially when our relationships have been built on versions of ourselves that were easier to accept. There’s a quiet fear that lingers: Who stays if I change? If they really see me, will they accept me? If I tell them my truth, will I be cast out? They say they love me, but if they never knew who I really am, was it ever actually love?

Not every truth is seismic. Not every revaluation risks losing everything. Sometimes it’s quieter. You grow up dismissing a genre of music you’ve never actually heard, repeating what you were taught. Then one day, you listen. And you like it. You begin to question what else you’ve inherited without examination.

You realize how much of you was shaped before you ever had the chance to choose.

Of course, not all of this comes from a place of harm. A father may have brought his child to baseball games simply to connect, to give what he never received. A mother may have hidden her tears to protect her child from carrying burdens that were never theirs to hold.

But even well-intentioned messages can clip our wings.

We try on identities like hats, convinced they fit, until one day they don’t. We outgrow them. Or maybe we never grew into them at all. We become fractured. The version of us at work looks different from the one at a party, which looks different from the one who sits alone in the quiet.

And eventually, the question surfaces:

Who am I, really?

Maybe that’s the real fear.
Not that others won’t recognize us…
but that we won’t recognize ourselves.

If the mask came off, would you recognize yourself?

Paris, Part 2: Walking the City and Choosing What Matters

Published on March 18, 2026June 7, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

Forgive the brief interlude in my tale of Paris, but as you well know, I always sprinkle tidbits of wisdom between my stories of adventure. After all, I don’t just want you to go off and have fun. I truly hope this is a place where we can grow together and create lives punctuated by adventure rather than longing for it as an escape from daily misery.

Now, we left off, dear reader, with my arrival: tired and exhausted from a sleepless night but pumped full of adrenaline, the equivalent of five or six cups of coffee coursing through my veins.

I had already gotten thoroughly lost on the way to the hostel and had largely given up on public transit as a viable means of navigating the city. Honestly, that’s only a feat a young twenty-something can get away with.

Now, I’m not entirely certain what the rules are for crossing the streets in Paris, but they did not appear to follow the ones I had grown up with. There were multiple occasions when the light was clearly red and people were walking, and others when it was green and everyone simply stopped.

Both my travel partner and I were quite confused by this apparent inconsistency.

It was decidedly not like Germany, where people display an almost obsessive adherence to rules. Even if there isn’t a car in sight, they will dutifully wait at the crosswalk until the light indicates it is time to cross.

However, after one or two close calls with traffic, we simply looked at each other, shrugged, said “when in Rome,” and followed the Parisians for guidance, forgoing the lights entirely since they clearly could not be trusted.

Our first stop was the Louvre, which is a must for any lover of art and history. Not only does it house one of the most famous paintings on earth, it is also the largest and most visited art museum in the world.

Originally built as a fortress and later expanded into a royal palace, the Louvre now spans roughly 2.3 million square feet. Of its approximately 380,000 objects, around 35,000 are on display at any given time.

Considering it would take over three months to see the entire collection, we decided to focus only on the highlights and the pieces that spoke most to us.

There are plenty of guides that will tell you the “must-see” works at the Louvre. But if something doesn’t speak to you, skip it. Focus on the areas of art and history you genuinely enjoy.

I, for one, would recommend skipping the Mona Lisa.

All it really amounts to is a photo opportunity for social media. It’s tiny, placed behind thick glass in a poorly lit room with hundreds of people pushing and shoving for a better look. You’re honestly better off googling a picture for all you’ll actually see.

Any contemplative awe you might have felt is drowned out by the din of the crowd and the smell of raised armpits as phones are hoisted into the air for a better shot.

If you aren’t paying attention, your belongings might get nicked, and you could spend the rest of your Paris trip trying to recover stolen credit cards while cursing the day you were introduced to the pernicious lady with her sly smile.

After all, she too was once stolen. Why not cavort with thieves once again?

As I’ve said in other posts, don’t let other people’s opinions dictate what you do or do not do. So if you must see the Mona Lisa, I shall not judge you for it.

Just remember that the Louvre houses centuries of art, offering millennia of history to explore, not just stuffy Italians and pretentious French painters.

Its oldest piece is estimated to be around 9,000 years old and is well worth the trek to see.

Since I was traveling with an archaeology major, we spent most of our time in the Greek and Roman sections, along with some of the French collections.

My personal favorite was the sculpture Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss. Not because I have a particular fondness for eighteenth-century French sculpture, but because one of my favorite books is Psyche and Cupid by C. S. Lewis.

Art isn’t always just about what the artist intended, its place in history, or the techniques used. It is also about what it evokes in us.

I would argue that this is what art is most about: what we bring to the moment of encounter.

When I looked at that sculpture, I did not simply see the Greek myth. I saw it retold through a different lens. A revival not just of Psyche, but of myself.

Small tip: book your ticket in advance.

Prior to the pandemic, the best way to get into the Louvre was through one of the side entrances to skip the long lines. However, with its ever-growing popularity, daily visitor numbers are now capped, meaning the only way to guarantee entry is with a pre-booked ticket.

Sorry to all my free-spirited wanderers.

Having conquered a small portion of the Louvre, we ventured forth to the Lady of Paris: the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Walking through Paris instead of taking public transit allows you to experience the city in a completely different way. You breathe it in.

On foot, you notice the small shops and hidden corners that would otherwise blur past from a bus window or subway seat. The scent of coffee lingers in the air as you stroll by cafés, while the temptation of fresh-baked bread drifts from bakeries onto the street.

In early spring, the flowers spill across the sidewalks and painters emerge as if the season itself has burst through the concrete, refusing to remain buried beneath winter any longer.

Everywhere is a riot of color and life. Musicians greet you with cheerful melodies, and you cannot help but sway your hips just a bit in time with the music.

It was on our way to Notre Dame that we stumbled upon an artist selling watercolor paintings of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre.

For a set of four, it was perhaps forty euros, an absolute steal, and it was there that my habit of buying art as a souvenir was born.

Erika and I split the cost and decided we would determine who received which painting at the end of the trip.

Long before we saw its doors, the twin towers of Notre Dame rose proudly above the surrounding buildings, beckoning us closer.

The cathedral was completed in 1260, though additions were made in the centuries that followed. Like any church nearly eight hundred years old, it has seen its share of glory and hardship: wars, neglect, desecration, and most recently, fire.

Fortunately, we visited before the fire and the subsequent debates over the restoration of its windows.

As a Christian myself, I was fascinated by the displays of Catholic artifacts that told the story of the church’s role in medieval Europe. I saw relics carefully displayed and read about how the church intersected with everyday life in the heart of France.

However, much like the Mona Lisa room, it was not a place of hushed awe but rather a chaotic stream of tourists passing through.

Contemplation was not something I readily found there. (For that, I recommend seeking out some of the lesser-known churches.)

By this point my legs were beginning to feel the day’s journey, but that did not dissuade me from climbing to the top of the cathedral to take in the city below.

From there we saw, glittering in the bright spring sun, the white dome of the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur.

At the time, I must admit my ignorance. I had never heard of the church, and neither had Erika.

She suggested we should visit it.

I squinted across the grid of busy streets at what appeared to be an impossible distance to walk and declared quite confidently that there was absolutely no way I would trek all the way there.

Oh, dear reader, how the universe loves to laugh at the things we believe are beyond us.

For unbeknownst to me, I would indeed walk there.

But that is a story for another day.

And so, in the interest of time, I must pause my tale here.

You will have to return for Part Three.

Want to discover more adventures? Check out my whole Bucket List and Reverse Bucket List

Grace Over Perfection

Published on March 11, 2026March 10, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

Dear reader, first, allow me a brief apology for my slight inconsistency in posting. As I have previously shared, I am in the process of starting my own business, and that adventure has proven to be a bit more of an undertaking than it first appeared. There have also been a number of misadventures on the home front, including a flooded basement.Worry not for my misfortunes though. I assure you that everything is well in hand, aided by my signature sarcasm, a few well placed witty quips, and an almost stubborn ability to find the silver lining in nearly any situation.

Life, after all, is largely about navigating the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with a bit of grace. Lately, that grace has been directed inward. It would be easy to begin beating myself up over the missed, self imposed deadline of faithfully posting each Wednesday. I am, after all, a bit of a recovering perfectionist. The familiar spiral is always waiting: berating myself, stressing over unmet expectations, and allowing those expectations to quietly dictate my sense of self worth.

But let us be honest for a moment. Is my self worth really tied to my ability to publish a blog post on schedule? Is it tied to the success of this new business venture? To my accomplishments, my travels, or the neat little checkmarks on a to do list?

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Of course not.

And yet, that is the trap of perfectionism. It persuades us to tether our value to outward measures. What begins as a guiding star slowly becomes a chain. Aspirations harden into obligations. Joy drains out of the very pursuits that once inspired us.

When that happens, even the things we love can begin to feel heavy. You may scoff at the idea that expectations can weigh so heavily, but consider the world of elite athletics. During the recent Winter Olympics, the world watched in awe as figure skater Alysa Liu performed with what could only be described as unrestrained joy.

Not long ago, she had stepped away from the sport entirely. The pressure, the constant scrutiny, and the relentless push toward winning had transformed her love of skating into something burdensome. Burnout followed close behind. But when she returned, she did so on her own terms, with one simple rule: she was there to have fun.

And suddenly, everything changed.

Her skating appeared effortless and relaxed. The tension was gone. Instead of skating cautiously under the weight of expectation, she moved with the freedom of someone who had remembered why she loved the ice in the first place. That joy was contagious. Viewers could feel it through the screen.

Ironically, when she stopped chasing the gold medal, it found her anyway.

The Olympics also remind us of the other side of the coin. Even the most extraordinary athletes can crumble under the immense weight of expectation. We watched this unfold in recent years when Simone Biles stepped back to protect her mental health. And this past winter, Ilia Malinin carried the kind of pressure that comes from being called a once in a generation talent.

This is not an indictment of any of them. If anything, it is a reminder of how human we all are.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

I know that pressure well myself. I have shared before that public speaking and violin auditions once triggered intense anxiety for me. What had once been joyful became something to dread. Performance turned into judgment. Eventually, I stopped playing for many years altogether, silencing a part of myself that once brought me immense joy.

But the strange thing about joy is that it often waits patiently for us to rediscover it.

When we allow space for play, when our work becomes exploration instead of obligation, something shifts. We loosen our grip on perfection and suddenly our creativity can breathe again. Our spark returns.

And sometimes that spark does more than illuminate our own path.

It becomes a catalyst for others. Perhaps that is what I am learning in this strange season of flooded basements and fledgling businesses. Progress is rarely tidy. The best things in life are rarely perfect. They are messy, unpredictable, occasionally inconvenient, and often accompanied by a small amount of water damage.

But they are also alive.

So I will continue writing, even if Wednesday occasionally becomes Thursday. I will continue building this business, even if the process involves a few wrong turns and lessons learned the hard way. I will continue picking up the violin, even if the notes are not always as polished as they once were.

Perfection may impress people from a distance. Joy invites them closer. So, dear reader, perhaps the real invitation is this: release the crushing weight of expectation. Allow yourself to try, to stumble, to learn, and occasionally to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Let your aspirations guide you, but do not allow them to chain you. And when life floods your basement, metaphorically or otherwise, remember that grace often begins the moment we stop demanding perfection.

After all, a life well lived is rarely flawless.

But it is very often joyful.

Rethinking Love in February

Published on February 16, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

Love is in the air, or at least Valentine’s Day is.

It’s the time of year when the town is painted red, couples linger a little closer, and a different kind of warmth permeates despite the bitter chill of winter. The days are growing lighter. Spring is promised. Something soft waits patiently beneath the cover of snow.

And yet, Valentine’s Day carries a strange contradiction.

Did you know it is one of the most common days for breakups?

For a holiday brimming with sappy poems, fragrant flowers, and sweet chocolate, it has earned a surprisingly bitter reputation. Perhaps that is because a day devoted to love forces us to reflect on what love actually is… and sometimes, upon closer examination, we discover that what we thought was love… wasn’t.

Believe it or not, our culture, and often even our families, do a poor job of teaching us what real, authentic love looks like.

We talk about butterflies in our stomachs and feeling lightheaded from a kiss. In love songs, boundaries blur and two people fuse into one. In stories, love is intense and consuming. The hero protects the heroine, but also possesses her, sealing devotion with the words: “You are mine.”

Sometimes we are taught to view love through obligation and duty. Love becomes something we owe. Something we earn by fulfilling expectations and playing our roles correctly. Love becomes sacrifice at the expense of the self.

But is that love?

I would argue that these versions are infatuation at best, and unhealthy, even abusive, at worst. And yet, between cultural depictions and our own internal patterns, we often confuse what love is.

We learn from our earliest experiences what love looks like. As we grow older, we don’t always seek what is healthy, we seek what is familiar.

I could list a million examples of unhealthy love. I could write out endless red flags. But the problem with red flags is that if something doesn’t match them exactly, we may dismiss what we feel.

We tell ourselves, “Well, it’s not abusive.”

And yet, something can fall short of abuse while still falling far short of love.

That is why I want to focus instead on what healthy love actually looks like.

Across poems, philosophy, research, and human experience, certain themes arise again and again. Love is more than a feeling or an attachment. Healthy love is a consistent presence, the willingness to stay, not because one must, but because one chooses to.

And while love may cost us something at times, it should never come at the cost of ourselves.

Healthy love is not self-erasure. It is not martyrdom. It is a widening sense of us that still contains a me. Sacrifice in love should not diminish either partner, but strengthen both.

To love someone is also to truly see them.

Love recognizes the beloved as they are: flawed, human, singular, worthy. Love says, “You matter. You are not interchangeable. You cannot simply be replaced.”

Love is not possession. It is not fear disguised as devotion. Nor is it the merging of two souls into one entwined being, as popular as the fated-mate trope may be.

Love does not have chains.

It is choice and freedom.

Healthy love enhances rather than restricts. It fosters growth rather than suffocation. One person is not diminished so the other can shine. Both are made better, not because they complete one another, but because they support one another.

In short, healthy love is a relationship where both people feel emotionally safe, seen as they are, and free to grow without fear of punishment, abandonment, or control.

Love says:

“I won’t disappear when you’re inconvenient.”
“I won’t punish you for being human.”
“I won’t leave you alone in your pain.”

But healthy love does not say:

“I will erase my own needs.”
“I will surrender my boundaries.”
“I will make your suffering my identity.”

Love is safety for both.

It allows both partners to exist without feeling they must earn their right to be there.

And perhaps that is the quiet challenge of Valentine’s Day, beneath all the roses and romance. Love is not something waiting for us in some distant future, once we are finally healed, finally perfect, finally enough. It is something we practice in the present, in the relationships we choose, in the boundaries we hold, in the way we refuse to mistake survival for devotion. A life well lived is not built “someday.” It is built here, now, in the steady courage to believe that love can be both real and safe, and that we are worthy of it exactly where we are.

Photo by Rogu00e9rio Souza on Pexels.com

Stop Waiting for the After

Published on January 28, 2026 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

After the trip. After things calm down. After I fix myself. After I get my finances together.

Always after. Always somewhere in the future.

We tell ourselves these stories so often they begin to feel like truth. Life will really begin once the chaos settles, once we become more disciplined, more organized, more healed, more prepared. Until then, we endure. We keep our heads down, grit our teeth, and tell ourselves this is just a season—even when that season stretches on for years.

And yet, time has a way of slipping through our fingers when we are always waiting. One day we look up and realize we have not so much lived as survived. The days were filled. The calendar was full. But the life itself felt strangely absent.

Of course, there were moments of joy. There always are.

A long-awaited weekend getaway. A carefully planned weeklong vacation. Maybe, if we were especially lucky or brave, a two-week escape that felt almost indulgent. These moments gave us oxygen. We counted down to them obsessively, letting anticipation carry us through exhausting workweeks. The promise of rest, novelty, and beauty became the thing that kept us moving forward.

For a brief while, we could breathe.

But then the trip ended. The air thinned again. And the familiar weight returned, heavier somehow for having been briefly lifted. The emotional letdown after travel crashed over us like a wave, knocking us off our feet. What was meant to restore us instead highlighted how depleted we were the rest of the time.

I remember this feeling vividly after my very first cruise.

I had been so excited to experience it with my sister, who had gone on one before and filled my imagination with stories and photos. We planned everything meticulously, savoring the anticipation as much as the trip itself. And the week away truly was a dream. Swimming with dolphins. Snorkeling over a shipwreck. Walking along the famed pink beaches of Bermuda. For a few precious days, life felt expansive and light.

Then it ended.

I was sitting in a train terminal in New York, waiting for the train back to Philadelphia, when a familiar sense of dread began to creep in. My heart started pounding. My mind raced ahead of me, already back at my desk. Had I missed deadlines? What had happened with my clients while I was gone? What did my inbox look like? Would I be returning to chaos I could never quite get ahead of?

The anxiety built quickly, swallowing all the ease and joy I had felt just hours earlier. The relaxation I had carefully collected over the week evaporated, replaced by a sense of impending doom. I realized, with startling clarity, that the problem was not that the vacation was too short. It was that my daily life was unsustainable.

I did not stay at that job much longer.

Looking back, I can see what was really happening. Time away had become the only time I felt fully alive. Travel was no longer something that enhanced my life. It was something that made my life bearable. It was not a chance to breathe deeply, but the only moment I was allowed to breathe at all.

That is a heavy thing to place on something meant to be joyful.

Travel, adventure, and novelty are not the villains here. They are generous teachers. They show us beauty. They remind us of wonder. They broaden our perspective and refresh our spirits. But when they become lifelines rather than highlights, they quietly reveal a deeper problem: a life structured in a way that requires escape.

It is hard to feel at home in your own life if every day feels like scaling a mountain rather than taking a gentle walk through the woods. When effort is constant and rest is rationed, even joy begins to feel transactional—something we earn only after enduring enough discomfort.

Living well does not happen by accident. It requires intention, attention, and a willingness to examine the parts of our lives we have normalized simply because they are familiar.

So what does it mean to design a life that supports you rather than one you need rescuing from?

It does not mean eliminating hard work or responsibility. It does not mean chasing constant happiness or turning every day into a highlight reel. It means building rhythms that allow you to inhabit your life rather than flee from it. It means making choices—sometimes small, sometimes uncomfortable—that reduce the daily friction slowly draining your energy.

It might look like boundaries that protect your evenings. Or financial systems that lower your baseline anxiety. Or a job that challenges you without consuming you. It might look like simplifying instead of accumulating, choosing enough instead of more, rest instead of relentless self-improvement.

Most of all, it means refusing to postpone your life until some imagined version of yourself finally arrives.

If we are always waiting to become someone better before we allow ourselves to live well, we may wait forever. Growth does not require self-denial as proof of worthiness. A meaningful life is not a reward reserved for those who have perfected themselves.

When we begin to live well now—imperfectly, quietly, intentionally—something subtle but powerful happens. Travel changes its role. Adventures stop carrying the weight of our unmet needs. They become what they were always meant to be: enhancements rather than escapes.

Instead of giving our lives color, travel adds highlights.

A beautiful trip becomes like the right accessory. It does not replace the outfit. It elevates it. It brings contrast, texture, and delight to something already functional and meaningful. The joy of returning home no longer feels like loss, but like integration—bringing what we learned and felt back into a life that can hold it.

This is not a call to stop dreaming, exploring, or longing for more. It is an invitation to stop living entirely in the future. To notice where you are postponing joy out of habit rather than necessity. To ask, gently and honestly, what would make this season more livable.

The goal is not to suck the marrow out of every moment. The goal is to stop starving ourselves the rest of the year.

A life you do not want to escape from does not have to be extraordinary. It simply has to be yours, tended to with care, lived in with intention, and allowed to matter right now, not later. So what are you waiting for dear reader? Go forth and create a life for now.

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