Thirty-seven began in Mexico City. On July 25th, I woke up in a beautiful place that reminded me life can still surprise you. I’d been in CDMX for five days before my birthday, spending that time with my oldest daughter, who is headed off to college in just a couple of weeks. A few days into the trip, my best friend, Josefina, joined us, and my heart felt full. My younger children were with dad in Canada, visiting family and having adventures of their own. There was something special about knowing that the people I loved were out in the world, living and experiencing something new at the same time.
The days in Mexico City unfolded at a snail’s pace. We took long walks with nowhere to be, ate delicious food, and let curiosity decide where we went next. We were in awe. The colors. The energy. The beauty. It was all glorious. I kept my camera close. There were so many buildings that made me stop and look up, only to find flowers and plants spilling over walls or elders leaning out the window people watching and having their morning smoke. It felt invigorating to be somewhere that asked nothing of me but to be present.
Maybe because travel interrupts the ways we move through our everyday lives without thinking. At home, there is always something to tend to. A place to be. Someone to answer. Work waiting. A responsibility with my name on it. Life becomes so familiar that we can move through it without actually seeing much of it. But in new places, we’re forced to look, pay attention, and linger. Somewhere between walking through Roma Norte and turning another year older, I kept thinking:
Having the capacity to receive what you’ve been asking for matters just as much as asking for it in the first place.
We spend so much of our lives asking and longing—sometimes even begging and pleading for love. For friendship. For opportunity. For peace. For more time. For a way out. For a way through. For the chance to begin again. We pray. We manifest. We work. We hope. We make plans. We tell ourselves that when the thing finally comes, we will be ready. But wanting something does not always mean we have made room for it.
That part is harder to admit—because it challenges us to face the possibility that our blessings aren’t always being blocked. Perhaps they’re arriving, and we’re missing them because we haven’t (yet) built the capacity to recognize or receive them in their fullness quite yet. Over churros and café con leche with canela, I started thinking about what it actually means to have space for the things we say we want. Not just wanting them badly enough or working hard enough to get them, but having somewhere for them to land once they arrive. Receiving something new asks something new of us. A different way of loving. A different way of trusting. A different way of being in our own lives. The more I sat with that, the more I had to look at the ways I’ve done this in my own life. The times I asked for something different but still reached for what I knew. The times something good was right in front of me, but I didn’t yet know how to trust it.
Many of us want what we ask for—of course—but the fear of change has a way of making the things we no longer want feel safer than they actually are. Sometimes we know how to survive the old thing better than we know how to receive the new one.
On my actual birthday, we took a guided bike tour through Coyoacán—the place Frida Kahlo grew up. We ended up at Casa Azul that day and took in the beautiful art and history of her life. It was beyond moving to witness. I kept thinking about the trip I was supposed to take to Mexico City for my birthday last year. I planned it, booked it, wanted it, and still didn’t go. At the time, I felt scared and overwhelmed. Something in me just wasn’t ready. A year later, there I was. Same city. Different version of me. And maybe that was the divine and aligned timing I needed. This time, there was no fear pulling me back. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the thought of being somewhere new. There was just whimsy and excitement. I had the willingness to wander without knowing exactly where I was going. Trusting myself enough to enjoy wherever I ended up was a practice in being present. In 2025, I didn’t have the space for that. In 2026, I do. All of this reminded me that sometimes the things we want can arrive before we have the capacity to receive them. And not receiving them the first time doesn’t always mean we missed our chance.
As long as we are alive, there will be moments when life circles back and finds us with more room.
Exploring CDMX with my daughter beside me made that realization even more visceral. I could see how some of the habits that once helped me survive had eventually become the very things keeping me from fully living—and how much had changed now that I was willing to put some of them down. There I was, exploring a new city with my oldest child, just weeks before she leaves for art school. We were wandering, trying new things, being adventurous together. It was a gift to experience Mexico with her, especially because traveling the world with the people who raised me wasn’t something I got to experience growing up. Getting to create those experiences with her is a gift. I can’t wait to see where we go next.
Our trip showed me that what once protected us can eventually become what limits us if we aren’t careful. Sometimes, the very things that got us through (back then) are the things we have to put down if we want to expand, experience, and evolve.
Maybe that’s part of having capacity, too: recognizing when the way you’ve always survived is taking up space that your life is trying to fill with something else. Perhaps, trusting yourself enough to put things down, so you can be present for what’s here now, is a gift and a birthright. Last year, Mexico City was somewhere I wanted to go but couldn’t quite bring myself to receive. This year, I was there. No fear. Just willingness to explore and be where my feet are.
Getting to experience the blessing of that beautiful city wasn’t blocked. I just needed time to become ready for it. There is something tender about being able to admit that without making the version of me who stayed home last year wrong. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t failing. She wasn’t behind. She was overwhelmed.
There are seasons when even the things we want can feel like too much to hold. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is tell ourselves the truth about that instead of forcing an experience simply because we think we should be ready for it.
What I’m embracing now is this: Being ready, and having the capacity to receive, cannot be rushed or forced. Sometimes there is work happening in us that we cannot see. A loosening. An unearthing. A shedding. A rebuilding of self-trust. A return home to self.
That may be one of the more visceral lessons 37 has already handed me. There is a difference between being denied and needing to declutter emotionally, spiritually, and physically before you have the room to welcome anything new into your orbit.
Those two experiences can feel identical when you are standing on the outside of what you want. Both can feel like not yet. Both can feel like disappointment. Both can make you wonder what you did wrong. However, time has a way of showing us the difference. Some things really do leave our lives. Some doors actually close and will not re-open. There will be opportunities that will not come back around—but there are (also) things that return. And when they do, we get to meet them with hands that are different from the ones that reached for them the first time.
Being back in the states, I’ve been thinking so much more about capacity. About releasing to receive. I’ve been exploring how many things have I’ve prayed for with clenched fists. How often have I’ve asked for something new while holding tightly to what cannot come with me.
While journaling the other day, I asked myself: How much room have you actually made for the life you keep saying you want?
Wanting freedom means loosening our grip on what keeps us bound. There are things we cannot receive while remaining committed to the version of ourselves that learned how to live without them. Maybe that is why some blessings feel uncomfortable when they first arrive. They require more than gratitude. They demand adjustment. They ask us to stop bracing and soften. We can’t keep walking backward and expecting a different path to appear.
Today, capacity feels less like how much I can carry and more like how much of my life I am actually available to experience. That distinction matters to me. Because I have been strong. I know how to carry. I know how to keep moving. I know how to survive things I once thought might swallow me whole. But survival isn’t the only evidence that I am alive & have lived.
I want to be moved by my own life. I want to notice when it is good. I want to recognize the people who meet me with care while they are still standing in front of me. I want to enjoy what I worked for before I turn it into another thing to maintain. I want to sit inside a beautiful moment without immediately wondering what comes after it. I don’t need to know what’s next—I am leaning into what is now. Mexico City gave me that reminder. I have capacity for delight and dilly-dallying. My soul-work is having enough room in my life to recognize when something good has already arrived, and enough presence to receive it while it’s here.
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