Blessed are the people who wake up each day and thank their Lord to see the sunlight once again. Lucky are the people who wake up each morning and live another day without thought or concern as to where they came from or where they are going.
I’ve always wanted to be the type of person that can fully live each day and see it for the miracle that it is. However, let’s face it. I am not that person. Each day I open my eyes and my life comes flooding through them back into my body. “Oh right,” I think “work, laundry, packing, call this person, fuck I don’t wanna go to work, get up, gotta pee, ooh it’s cold.” All that before even a millisecond of gratitude or recognition that the sun is shining, the oxygen in pumping, the world is still turning…
2013 was a year full of a lot of different things. Curious to know how it looks from the outside, but I spent a lot of this year in a certain type of pain. One that no one can see, and obviously one that didn’t hold me back. This was a very influential year in the development of me.
Now that it’s practically a part of my past, I can look at it a little more clearly. From day 1 – I was not into it. In a severe depression, from not being loved by the one I wanted so desperately to love me. Going through the year I was rejected by another, who I had gained and wanted the attention I was getting from him. Then he dropped me, cold and forgotten. Meanwhile over both of those, I was in an on again off again relationship, with someone who ultimately won my love because of his willingness to love me for who I am, despite the fact that I’m still convinced he doesn’t quite know who that is.
There were many days in 2013 that I was not a fan of the year, or the life. I complained a lot and felt the world was out to get me, because I just couldn’t win. The world and I went to battle. It gave me an ultimatum – to change or remain the same.
I rose to the challenge and chose to change. The universe, in it’s full iconic satire challenged me right back. It threw at me, some of the most asinine obstacles that literally had me crying on the floor, more than once, begging for mercy. Luckily, and like always, the mercy comes with the sun – the dawn of a new day. Some times it would take several days but I always made it through the darkest of nights.
It took one full year to realize what my next step was. Six months to pin-point it and the rest of the time to formulate the plan to act on it. Now here I am, stronger and wiser and ready for the war.
The funny thing is, the war is over. I won the battles AND I won the war. Well, this war. Good triumphed evil and the better version of myself rose from the ashes. This is the shit you read about in books.
I know this may sound weird since you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about, and probably won’t ever. The point is when you finally have the courage to do what scares you most you learn the most important things in life – like who you really are.
Your vision of yourself comes shattering down when you realize you are not actually perfect and you spend more time trying to hide from feeling shitty then trying to do anything that makes you even the slightest bit happy.
2014 is going to be an incredible year, for me. I’m going to travel. I’m going to do things I’ve never dreamed of. This is the first new year that has coincided with a shedding of skin for me. I understand a little more what giving yourself over to faith or a religion is, which is giving yourself over to the higher power. I think I always liked to fog myself with the false impression that I had control over everything.
Walking home tonight, with the snowflakes glittering the air, through the trees and on to the sidewalk I realized why people cry at sunsets. It’s an amazing, miraculous thing that we live. Think of how astoundingly incredible it is that on top of the fact we all live our lives we all have the intense belief that what we think/see/believe is exclusive to us and certain for everybody.
The pompous notion that we are right, either on an individual level or one of greater consequence – humanity. If your beliefs were a color, every piece of art wouldn’t be just one color would it? What would we get from that? We need the other colors, for so much. For contrast and compliment. We wouldn’t know what blue was if we didn’t have red. We wouldn’t know that we liked green so much if we didn’t like yellow. We wouldn’t know that black goes with everything and makes you look slimmer if we all didn’t make that “all white” outfit mistake… at least once.
Possibly, and most likely fleeting are these feelings I have been having lately where I have been tearing down all the conventional bull that’s been stuffed in my face since birth. I understand the life of travel and adventure is not for everybody. It certainly is for me, because I am the type of person that needs to touch the burning fire to know it’s hot.
That was the gift that 2013 gave me. The courage to be confident in knowing that about myself and being able to explain that about myself. Half the time I get into trouble or do unwise things, it’s because I just have to check. Like packing up and moving to Australia in 2 months, I know it exists – I’ve seen “Muriel’s Wedding,” however, I need to touch it.
My wish for you for 2014 is NOT to quit your job and travel. My wish for you is to find what sparks your soul as much as the saying “quit your job and travel” does for mine. Then, act on it. Throw your convention to the wind and do something that you’ve been afraid to do, be the person you’ve been afraid to be, say what you’ve been afraid to say. Liberate whatever has oppressed you.
Fuck being in a sparkly dress and being kissed at midnight. There is so much more to a day than what you can glorify on social networks. Do something that makes your soul flourish, that is a story worth hearing about.
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Adventures of the untoward 