The willed recovery of what’s been lost – often forcibly, I suppose – is what keeps me going. It is this reason I found myself a poet and a collector and now a curator: to save what we didn’t even know needed saving.
–Kevin Young
We are all curators – of experiences, people, and the things we do every day that make us, us. And just like how one would curate art pieces to create a meaningful collection, I like to think of curating time as gathering your most meaningful moments – time spent with the people you love, time spent doing the things that bring you the most joy – to create the life you want to live.
I spent a lot of the past two years engrossed in the everyday “grind,” drifting further and further away from the person I was and loved. I felt I didn’t have time to do the things that used to ground me, and it started to take a physical toll.
I was always anxious, frustrated, and harsh. I stopped drinking coffee to help with all these negative feelings, but it only helped so much. I felt so far away from the person I was just a few years before that I began to lose sight of my own identity.
And then one day I realized that returning to the person I loved would require real effort. I had to make a conscientious effort to really value my time and curate it with the things that used to ground me. I had to re-focus my life on filling my time with the things I love, and really enveloping myself in them.
My time needed saving. I had forgotten how valuable it was, and how at the end of the day, it was all I really had. I told myself that if I curated my time in a way that brought me more joy, then all those other negative feelings would just fall away.
And they did. But not all at once.
Cooking by itself didn’t cut it. Focusing on just traveling or new experiences didn’t either. It took the curating of all these things to really get out of this funk and create a full collection of a life well lived.
So welcome. I hope this inspires you to dedicate your time to the people and things that bring you the most happiness. Or maybe to try something new that helps you discover a new part of yourself. Whatever it is, I hope it helps you save what you didn’t even know needed saving.
