The Heart List

Summer eh?

My favorite feeling in the entire world is when the sun sets and you realize you don’t need a jacket anymore for the first time after winter.

That’s when I know summer is here.

And I care because summer is my New Year’s.

Summer is when I actually come alive.

Summer makes my world feel tinted in rose-colored glasses. My pastels become vibrant again, the birds stop sounding annoying, and popsicles melting down my hand somehow become a welcome feeling.

It’s also the time I start my long-standing tradition of making a Heart List.

What’s a Heart List?

Basically, it’s 10 challenges that are supposed to push me out of my comfort zone and change my perspective on the world. I mostly started doing it to help my songwriting and force myself into situations worth writing about.

And I HAVE to complete it by Aug. 24 or I punish myself somehow… like no sugar for a month AGH!!

I’ve been doing this since I was 16 after reading Love, Life, and the List by Kasie West.

(Read it if you need summer inspiration.)

The list changes every year as I grow up, but three things usually stay the same: facing a fear, learning a stranger’s story, and falling in love every day. Two are from the book.

The last one is from my dad.

He always told me to fall in love daily, which I think is probably to blame for my entire personality.

Anyway.

This year I got stuck making my list.

Like genuinely stuck.

I burned two weeks of summer trying to figure out how to actually stretch myself when my comfort zone is already kind of unconventional.

Because this year I was constantly talking to strangers for news stories, putting myself into situations I’d never been in before, covering things like car crashes in canyons, and constantly finding new ways to fall in love with the world.

At some point, uncomfortable became normal.

Then my mom said something today about traditions evolving.

And maybe this summer my Heart List needed to evolve too.

Because I realized something.

It’s not about whether I can do hard things anymore. I know I can.

It’s whether I will actually ask for the life I want.

And that realization kind of hit me like a brick.

I think I spend a lot of time wandering into stories and opportunities and people instead of directly choosing them.

Like I let life happen to me instead of fully gambling on myself first.

And that’s when I realized this summer I don’t actually need to face more fears.

I need to take more gambles.

Because fear says stop.

A gamble says this could completely embarrass me or change my life forever, and I’m doing it anyway.

Also, the thing about the Heart List is that it’s supposed to be both specific and vague, because summer is supposed to take you somewhere unexpected…. but I’m also choosing to be more direct…. It’s kind of in conflict… but I had to keep some spontaneity, sue me.

So this year’s Heart List is called:

A Very Risky Gamble

(Yes inspired by The Inheritance Games because obviously.)

1. Ask to collaborate with someone I admire

2. Pitch myself for an opportunity before someone asks me to

3. Spend one day acting like the main character in a coming-of-age movie and fully commit to the bit

4. Apply for something with a success rate low enough to embarrass me

5. Wear the outfit that feels “too much” and don’t apologize for it all day

6. Do one thing this summer that my future self will talk about for years

7. Tell someone I like them before I know if they like me back

8. Ask someone what they first thought of me

9. Tell someone the real reason I wrote a song

10. Give someone my writing (my book )

    AND VLOG ALL OF IT.

Now, I could go into a whole dramatic monologue about how I hope this changes me as a person… but honestly, I would rather let the summer speak for itself.

Or more realistically, let my vlogs speak for themselves.

But I do hope this inspires you to make your own list and challenge your heart and perspective to grow.

Anyway, happy summer.

Go ruin your life a little bit.