Thankful.

Today is Thanksgiving. It’s snowing and I’m eating freshly baked cookies after having spent the morning with my beloveds watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I love this day. I feel as if I’ve been given much to be thankful for this year, and what a journey it has been.

2014 has brought many struggles. I've found myself barely holding onto a cord of hope, being pulled by the weight of the unknown and fear. It’s a scary thing to follow your dreams when it’s completely uncharted territory. It takes utter faith in knowing that it will all work out when you have every sign of the contrary. It also requires an awareness that those signs are interpreted solely by you, and are therefore whatever you make them to be. I have been so scared. I have felt shameful for not having achieved what I wanted and for being where I am in my life right now. As bright and shiny as it may appear to be following my heart, it is an enormous challenge to break out of tunnel vision when you’ve never learned how to see another way.

It’s funny how it works. You make a decision that you know through and through as the only right next step, and you let it happen. You just know it will work because it’s the only thing you believe in. All the things you need appear, perhaps not always how you expected but it all unfolds. The minute you let in the idea that it might not work out, you become consumed by the not-so-desirable alternative possibilities you’ve seen and they cloud your vision so that you’re unable to see or accept the favors that come your way. I’ve been stuck in that tunnel for almost all year. I was unable to recall the sentiment or emotion I carried when things DID work out, and I got absorbed into the minute by minute un-happenings – so much so that I lost my glimpse of the prize.

Today I’m particularly grateful because I’ve got it back. I am open, and I feel safe in all the decisions that have led me to this point. I suppose when you get on that path and go headfirst into the infinite, you are confronted with all of the things that have kept you from reaching what you most desire. You really do need to work through all of it, whether or not you even know it’s there. You’ll be shown – and you’ll be forced to reckon with yourself on all levels. As painful and convoluted as this is, I highly recommend it. There are ever higher heights and levels of being that we all are capable of striving for and to allow the uncomfortable into your life is to reach for those heights with all of your might. The strength must be built, but we are fully equipped to build it.

I urge you to allow yourself to be doing and feeling everything that you are experiencing. And really see what you’re feeling. You’ll see so much more, and you’ll come out on the other side knowing exponentially more what it means to be living. Acknowledge the pain and love yourself anyway. See where you’re hurting and love yourself anyway. Notice how outside factors are influencing your life and see that YOU are the one driving how you feel. And let it all happen. Just let it because it’s going to anyway. Loving yourself, no matter what is or is not happening, is the fastest way to the other side. And the other side is always there.  

There are infinite possibilities. Just because we cannot see them or see how to reach them, that in no way means they are not there. How could you say with any certainty that they aren’t? Allow the idea to be possible. You’ll be amazed how quickly it appears when you finally open your eyes. I’m thankful to be seeing. And for each of you. May you see, too. Lots of love.

Here's to one year, New York.

It’s beginning to look like fall outside. The clouds were out today, and the cooler breeze was up. I ate a few candy corns to commemorate the changing of the season. There is much newness and growth to be excited about, for it has been one whole year since I arrived in New York. I can’t really comprehend that all that time has passed, especially since I still feel high – this place is still new to me. Sure I got the subway system down and walk the streets at full speed like everyone is in my way, but occasionally (frequently, actually) I stop to just feel where I am. Every day I am grateful for the absence of presumption, expectation, and confinement in my steps.

I’ve experienced a lot of changes in the past twelve months that I feel great about. When I arrived, I got a great paying job and felt pretty set for the ensuing months of discovery and unraveling, all the while knowing it was temporary and meant as an adjustment period. The months dragged on I wished and hoped and despaired for not doing what it was I came here to do and soon enough realized I had needed to really get that “comfort” out of my system. Although I was treated well and living the easy life, the true ease would come with decisions that were natural – not the ones I make because I feel like I have to. There are infinite ways to support yourself and be happy doing so; I do not need to continue this devotion to a paycheck. My contract ends on October 10^th and I’m excited. I’ve learned a lot in the job sphere and even garnered the support of reputable professionals in my dreamy and idealistic pursuit of a second education. YESSSSS – classes have begun!

There is something SO rewarding about really pushing through your fears when it comes to doing what you KNOW you want to and need to do. I’m actually doing my homework this time around, and thoroughly enjoying lecture and lab instead of feeling scared of failing like I vividly remember, and like I recognize strongly in my surrounding 18yo peers. My professor, an adjunct professor whose full-time career is as a Bird Biologist at the American Museum of Natural History, is perfect. His perspective is real-world and open-minded and I just love what he has to say about all the world’s knowledge and un-knowledge and how much room we have to be surprised in life. Never just take anyone’s word for it – how can we ever really know all of the infinite possibilities? PERFECT. I want to chew his brain about all the things and I’m so looking forward to doing that this semester. In short, I am fed very deeply by making this happen for myself. Each minute is pleasantly worthwhile – I made the right choice.

I feel every day like I’m making the right choices. The freedom has settled in – how quickly our habit-changing behavior can take root and bring just what we hoped it would into our lives. The road is long and must be diligently followed, but no failure will sting quite as much as the ones you made before deciding to risk departing with the known. See the world as bringing you fortune and that it will. Very passionately and with much support.

And on we march.

No longer a marionette.

“The image you present is rather iconic. At first glance, you have a classic look about you: your curly hair and the way it falls over your lap while you sleep in the palm of your hand; your red sweater and how it appropriately accentuates your Victorian-esque fare skin; your copy of Brothers Karamazov facing backwards tilted forlornly in your arms… you look just like a beautifully sad marionette. But what gives it all away is the real kicker – those chucks you’re wearing bring it all back to reality.”

The subway can be a very interesting place. I have seen the worst and the best of things, and have had an old friend randomly sit right next to me and awaken me to the happy surprise of finding a familiar and friendly soul in the midst of an abyss of tens of thousands of strangers. It gets me where I’m going in an ambiance of utter presence. It’s there that I feel the most, see the most, and rest the most out of all my time in this city. Pleasantly enough, one stranger felt like sharing the piece of art he saw in me and there couldn't have been a timelier reminder of the reality I've built up around myself here and throughout all of my life.

Really this city has been such a playground for me. Not once have I felt like I don’t want to be here. I miss my dearest people so much, but the glory of this open and boundless freedom has kept me enraptured with the excitement of New York. It is crowded, strangers speak to or yell at you out of turn (even smack you if they feel so entitled), and it smells god-awful much of the time… but I don’t have to do anything but be what I want to be. I don’t have a soul here that expects anything of me and for the past 9 months I have really been given a taste of what it’s like to change my own expectations of myself. I mean really decide to be what I want. I can move across the country on a whim and wake up every day saying to myself how I want to feel, but to KNOW and actually feel that that’s all I have to feel is so liberating. To know that what I've built up out of necessity or a decision to make things work the only way I know how isn't necessarily the only option is just… just like I weigh as much as a feather. SO.IN.LOVE.

I've met many great ones and built upon relationships with people I feel fortunate to call close friends. I've encountered beautiful personifications of the kind of compatibility I hope to experience long term, eventually, and learned how to positively experience the natural course of those kinds of things. I've enjoyed sharing this place with friends from my past and the excellent family that’s made it out here for a visit. Above all, I've forgiven, loved, and embraced myself freely. This has really set the tone for what has shown up.

Part of my goal in coming here had somewhat of a rebellious nature (duh). After a life full of wondering and worrying what others were thinking or experiencing of me, I wanted to answer to NO one. Not anyone. No matter how much I love them. I wanted to feel like I had zero obligations and run wild. This worked well – it gave me the space to realize what it meant to have real relationships with real great people. I discovered that after all this time the ones that have lasted are still there for deeply important reasons. And I MISS them so SO much now that I've settled into me. I've recently had the great fortune of being Maid of Honor in one of the best-friend-I-ever-could-hope-for’s weddings. It was all a deeply healing process because although I knew our love for each other was genuine, after all this selfish time of discovery I now appreciate so much more what it means to have such an unconditional love. It’s a true gift. I feel so ready for this world because of it. Thank you, lpz. You are a beautiful illustration of righteous power and grace that I am privileged to love.

I’m now being bombarded with a forceful glance at the growth I've yet to accomplish. The stories—the job, the necessities, the limitations, the fears, worries, and uncertainties—are all coming to light. If I’m to love what I’m doing, where I am, and WHO I am, why don’t I do it the way I want to?? I’m staying awake with me. No more expectations or boxed-in modules of life and I've got just the chucks to walk right outside of them. I’m no longer a marionette.