Time After Time: Go with Grace

Another Saturday night in Barcelona. And in true Carrie fashion, I’m about to fall—headfirst into Dior… or, well, a karaoke bar. (This Carrie has evolved.) My heel catches the grate, time slows, and for a split second, I brace for impact.

But instead of making a scene—and making Parisian enemies like Carrie—somehow, the grace from that night’s ballet performance lingers just long enough to keep me upright. I look up to see my friends shaking their heads with knowing smiles, and Mr. International already dubbing it another Hudson moment.

Falling is only scary when you feel unseen.

As they say, to be loved is to be known.

To be found.

"You found me, you found me
Lyin’ on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why’d you have to wait?"

This weekend marked two months in Barcelona—long enough for people and places to feel etched into my timeline. Long enough to question the answers I thought I once had. To find myself—and let the world find me. To wonder how I ever lived without these moments, these people. To realize my own rhythm beats louder than the race to keep up.

And maybe the rush was never about exhausting myself to reach something. Maybe it was about getting close enough to the fall to realize I’d rather catch myself—with grace—before the crash.

To take that split second—not to hold my breath, but to choose how to land.

Let’s talk about time. Or at least, the illusion of it.

The first truth about time: it is manmade. A construct.

It can be an abundant well—nourishing, expansive—or a drain that never stops sucking. Choose or be chosen.

I’ve learned a lot about time here. I’ve felt how untethered it can become, how true time isn’t measured in numbers, figures, currency—but in energy, wisdom, and connection.

In quitting the chase of time, I’ve learned how to truly live it—to be so present that the seconds lock together like puzzle pieces. To feel overwhelming gratitude for where I land, while also losing some of the surprise, watching each moment seamlessly blend into the next.

The less time I spend living in my head—preparing for the world—the easier it becomes for the world to reach me and reveal its plans.

The second truth about time: its impermanence.

Two months down, out of the five I plan—or planned—to be here. Not sure what tense to use yet. But it makes me wonder:

Do we only cherish things because they end?

"Happiness is like the old man told me
Look for it, but you'll never find it all
Let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day, wake up and she’ll be home."

Can we only appreciate happiness because we know it won’t last? Because we are preparing our grace to survive the crash?

After two months of time flying too fast to process, I’ve stopped trying to hold onto fleeting moments. Instead, I’ve learned to live and leave—to let dreams unfold into friendships, love, dance, overwhelming happiness—and then, let them fall away with grace.

The third truth about time: love makes it infinite.

This weekend, two generations came into town—my mom and Grandmom. Seeing my new life through their eyes made me experience it anew. We filled the karaoke bar post-ballet performance with love, song, friendship, and laughter. All my worlds collided effortlessly, expanding in ways I hadn’t expected.

After the second ballet performance, I bonded with my new dance family over a post-show toast in Chicago-style flapper dresses, champagne in hand, followed by a crepe dinner. The words I love you guys practically slipped from my lips—maybe too soon after just one performance together, but love doesn’t wait for time to validate it. Love is no performance at all.

And then someone else said I love you recently. Suspending time in a single breath.

It nearly escaped when I gifted him a cork journal from my trip to Portugal, its first page holding a message I wrote to him:

"Thank you for making the words I once wrote dreams come true."

Don’t you just love what love does? It stretches time, turning past hopes into present realities.

I once wrote non-negotiables in my own journal—not just to define what I needed in another person, but to declare what I needed from myself before allowing love in.

If I only loved myself halfway, anything just beyond that might have felt like abundance.

But true love isn’t about being grateful for scraps of light—it’s about recognizing your own worth and demanding its equal reflection.

When I told him he was the manifestation of my pages, he said that if he had written his own list, I’d be more than he could ask for.

Time passed just long enough for him to reveal that he had, in fact, written something for me, waiting for the right moment to share it.

"Did you write in your journal to find a man who loves you more than you love him?"

Maybe, in writing my non-negotiables, I was really learning to love myself fully. With each expectation, I wasn’t just envisioning the kind of love I deserved—I was becoming the kind of woman who could recognize it.

A love that doesn’t measure time in days, but in depth. A love that multiplies, making hard days softer and beautiful moments boundless.

Love makes time infinite, because it exists in every moment we choose to see it.

The fourth truth about time: it grows what we nurture.

"Find someone who grows flowers in the darkest parts of you." — Zach Bryan

Twice, Mr. International tried to buy me flowers to celebrate my performance.
The first night—stuck in traffic.
The second—a fire outside the flower shop.

But maybe he never needed to. The light was already there, burning from the outside in.

I fell in love with so many blooming moments this weekend.

The way it felt to be on a stage again after two years, after brain surgery, after almost believing dance was over for me.

The way it felt to see half the theater filled with my new community on the other side of the world.

The way my friends—met by chance crossing the street—stood together on a karaoke stage, singing:

"Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten."

The fifth truth about time: it only exists in the now.

Past, future—just words we use to make sense of a linear world. To track progress. To measure evolution.

Walking on the beach after a day of laughter, Mr. International asked me to clarify something he feared had been lost in translation:

When am I leaving? What are my plans for the rest of my life?

Phew.

In English, I told him: The longest I can stay is until September. Two more years of college. A Samantha Jones job waiting for me.

But my soul? My soul sang:

"There now, steady love, so few come and don't go
Will you, won't you, be the one I always know?
When I'm losing my control, the city spins around
You're the only one who knows, you slow it down."

And so he did.

He reminded me: In linear time, it’s early. We have the whole future to figure out who we are alone or who we may be together.

But right now? Right now, we know what we feel. What we know.

"And I'll look after you."

And if time really isn’t linear, then we still have—

The laughter from my near fall into the karaoke bar.
The burning light outside the flower shop.
The Unwritten karaoke song, beginning the pages of our story.
The cork journal filling in the rest.
The Fray songs that followed us through the weekend.

The last truth about time?

The good things can wait.

And the best things—well, they defy time. They exist beyond it.

"If you're lost you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall, I will catch you, I'll be waiting
Time after time."