Staying Gold.

Camp Mighty necklace.

We're sitting in SFO waiting for our flight back to New York. A combination of lack of sleep and excess of food for thought results in a distracted fatigue. I really should be napping, but I can't stop looking at people's Life Lists and thinking through this weekend.

This isn't going to be The Post About Camp Mighty. I am much too close to it to do it justice. This is a simple post about one thing that Evany Thomas said on Friday morning during her talk.

She described where she was in her career several years ago. She had a decent job. She never took her work home; at 5pm every day, she was liberated to have a whole separate life. She wondered if that was it, if she had achieved the level of comfort that we often long for.

At that moment, she realized that she had a choice. Do you lean into the worst version of yourself, the one who longs for life to roll out wide and long ahead of you towards retirement? Or do you hold yourself to the highest standard?

"Stay gold," she told us.

Staying gold is so flipping exhausting. But gold is just that- it's gold. It's shiny, bright, valuable, strong and always worth its weight, whether you're talking about your career or the way you interact with new people.

We were the newlyweds this weekend. Arguably, we haven't even made it to a point where we have a long-term comfortable option for, well, anything. And yet. Hearing Evany speak on this point was a welcome sharp object, poking us in the underbellies and reminding us that those conundra are out there.

Deep breath. Long sleep coming. Long life coming. And hopefully, lots and lots of gold.