A Memory, music, and the gift of time

I met my husband in the summer of 2003, right after my freshman year of college.

My best friend had to drag me to a house party (because even at 19, I wasn’t keen on the idea of starting the night at midnight. I would rather be sleeping!), and after a couple of shots to loosen me up, and some dancing, she pulled my arm to take me outside for some fresh air.

I needed it apparently. Something about me: I’m a lightweight, but a happy, silly drunk and I get super friendly.

And that’s when I saw him.

Damn, he was cute. With his black t-shirt, green eyes, and trucker hat (Look, that was the fashion then, okay?!) just standing there next to his buddies at the doorway.

And with a big smile, and the flirtiest voice I could muster, I said, “Hiiii!”

Profound, I know. 😂

But that ‘hi’ was the beginning of a short summer romance - a good 3 weeks of us getting to know each other, billiard dates, first kisses, beach walks, concerts, and sharing our previous heartbreaks with each other.

Wowza!

I was enamored.

So, it really boggles my mind looking back, that a few days before I would leave to go back to school 2 ½ hours away, sitting together at the lakefront, my answer to his question of “How long do you think we’ll last?”, was, “I give it 3 months.”

O.M.G. Mari, what the heck are you DOING, girl?! Are you trying to sabotage this budding relationship?!

How he didn’t take that, and abandon me completely, I don’t know. He’s an angel.

Instead, he chuckled and said something like, “You might be the most pessimistic person I’ve ever met.”

Man, did that statement sting. I hadn’t really seen myself that way before - but honestly, he wasn’t wrong.

That’s when I realized how often I looked at things as glass half empty - how negative I could be. And I decided then that it was something I was determined to change.

But as with most deep patterns, they don’t disappear overnight.They shape-shift. They show up in different moments, under the guise of something else.

I didn’t want to walk through my life always anticipating the worst, instead of allowing myself to hope for the best.

Looking back, I can see how that moment wasn’t just about the relationship — it was about me bracing for disappointment before it had a chance to arrive. It was my way of shutting down hope to protect myself.

You know that phrase, “Don’t get your hopes up?” That seemed to be my constant motto.

I didn’t know it then, but that instinct — to shut down hope before it could bloom — was one of the earliest ways I learned to abandon myself.

And it’s something that I have to intentionally fight against, even today. It turned into a habit so ingrained, that unless I am very self aware, unless I question my own thinking, it can tend to creep into my thoughts, words, and actions.

Like this morning, driving back home from dropping off my girls…I felt surly. Grumpy. Angry and almost hopeless.

Life has been a little off kilter - like everything is moving too fast, spinning to the point where I feel off balance, and like I don’t have any control.

Our home routine has been turned upside down due to some construction, which puts me out of sorts. My husband’s job suddenly changed his day off group, placing more pressure on me and impacting our quality time together as a family. And in case you haven’t read the news lately, the world seems to be undergoing a huge shift, and not exactly in a positive direction.

When things begin to build like this, the pressure getting to a dangerous point, I tend to abandon the thing that keeps me going….faith and hope. That’s when I know I need something to interrupt the downward spiral. Not necessarily a solution, but just something to help me feel again.

So, this morning, instead of listening to yet another podcast like I’m prone to do, I decided to listen to something slow, relaxing, and beautiful.

I played Ludovico Einaudi. One of my favorite classical composers.

And as I listened, I started to feel a part of me coming back home to myself. I felt emotional, and more present.

I drove and watched spring flowers falling slowly, swooping down from the trees, littering the ground in a sprawl. I saw one of those mini free libraries that people set up on their lawns, colorfully painted on the outside with bright colors. I noticed the drops of water covering everything after a soft morning rain.

I let myself notice the small things.

And I felt happier.

I remembered how precious and beautiful it is to be alive.

Music always helps to have that effect on me. It becomes the soundtrack to my life. It helps me to remember the fact that only this moment matters.

And from that place - a place of presence, and hope - I remembered again the point to generosity, to beauty, and to art.

I remembered the one thing we all still have - time.

Time, not to abandon hope, but instead to embrace it. To amplify the good, instead of falling into despair.

And that time is an invitation - not just to keep pushing, but to slow down and ask: What am I abandoning when I move from fear?

I wish I’d known, sitting on those rocks by the lake, that we had time.

If I had let myself believe in the possibility—if I had allowed hope to take up just a little more space - I might have cherished those early days even more instead of preemptively grieving their end.

I’m grateful, though. Grateful that despite my doubt, he held the hope.

Because of his belief in what we could be, we didn’t just last three months—we lasted 22 years (and counting).

Sometimes, it only takes one person in the room to hold the possibility.

And what a gift it is when that person doesn’t abandon the moment, or the hope, or you.

—-

I wonder what I have been amplifying when I abandon myself. What have I been prioritizing, or focusing on when I’m rooted in fear?

Last time, I talked a bit about how we should prioritize presence overperfection, ambition without abandonment.

What I’m asking now is how exactly do we tend to abandon ourselves? Are there more ways than one? And in its simplest form - what do I really mean by abandonment?

I’m not a clinical expert, but I’ve lived this question.

When I say abandonment, what I really mean is turning away from the part of you that is genuine, honest, and sincere. It’s when you neglect, downplay, or deny your genuine values, or your heart’s desire. When you self-abandon you make decisions rooted in fear, instead of from a place of wonder, curiosity and trust.

It’s when I regretfully say yes to something I don’t want, not because I’m trying to compromise - to consciously bide my time for a better moment - but instead because it feels like the safer choice in betrayal of myself for someone else’s benefit.

These moments don’t always feel dramatic. In fact, they often look like responsibility or compromise on the surface — which makes them harder to notice.

We do this subconsciously all the time. We try to please our parents, our friends, our colleagues, or do what is outwardly acceptable by society.

We ignore that small, honest voice inside — the one that’s brave enough to hope for more.

I find myself sometimes thinking, I don’t really want that, but I’m too afraid to get the thing I really want, because I know it’s going to be the harder or less certain thing, so I'm going to let my fear take me in a different, maybe more safe, direction.

And in a way, it’s a form of neglect. We neglect that part of ourselves that is young, curious, open and just wants to play. The part of ourselves that wants to see what happens.

So when I talk about abandonment, what I’m really saying is that we abandon the part of ourselves that has hope for more, for better, for something that COULD be. The parts of ourselves that want to explore the possibilities.

And we don’t just abandon ourselves emotionally - we abandon the pieces that give us depth, color, and direction.

We abandon:

• Our curiosity: our openness to learning and willingness to ask questions instead of needing to prove.

• Our identity: the parts of us that feel different, brave, or culturally rooted.

• Our values: our principles and inner compass that guide us.

• Our time: our presence in the moment, lost to the chase of distraction or productivity.

• Our faith: our trust in ourselves, each other, the unknown.

And when I look at the news, when I read the highlights on my phone, I see a lot of abandonment of hope. I see us falling into despair. And I worry about our capacity for solving problems or creativity, when we make definitive pronouncements about how things will turn out to be - when it’s only rooted in fear.

Self-abandonment doesn’t just happen individually. We do it collectively too. When fear becomes the loudest voice in the room, hope becomes expendable — and we lose the ability to imagine something better.

We lose imagination when we convince ourselves we already know how it all ends.

Because the truth is, we don't know. And that's the magic. That's the gift - the gift of constant creation.

So why not hope for the best? Why not aim to make things better? To trust that we have time to create something more beautiful?

Let yourself come back to faith. Come back to hope. Come back to yourself. You still have time.

—-

If you’re curious about working together, you can find more about what I do here.

Sending you sunshine,

Mari ☀️

So many adventures together and more to come… :)