The Winds of Change..

Ya’ll listen… I had a dream that I hadn’t written a blog post or let you know what all was going on with me in THREE MONTHS. Then I woke up and realized that it was true. To say that the last time I posted seems like even longer than that is a true understatement, and I know that I have a lot of filling in to do. But it seems like that just wouldn’t be a good way to start the year. I will let you know this- all of the things that I have been up to since the Summer, and the coming posts do promise to be interesting and fun.

 

The experiences of living that I have had in the last few months feel like the most authentic version of myself that I have been in a really long time. I know that there have been times in my life that I have had to change everything all at once in order to make me happy. I somehow became the person that accepted things the way they were simply because they were..the norm. Somehow I was the girl that allowed people to treat me any way that they wanted to and call all the shots in relationships when I knew it wasn’t the best for me. I knew that there was something that had to be different. In years past I have also gone through stages where it seemed like in the blink of an eye the people, things and places that I once thought were the end all be all..were no longer there at all.

Each New Year, folks all over make resolutions. Countless people decide to lose weight, cut their hair, change jobs, or pay more attention to their families. I have talked about this in previous posts, how I don’t like to make resolutions. I think that I’m so much more likely to stick to something when I have made the choice all on my own; on a random Tuesday in May. When I think back, all the changes that I have made with the idea that I just needed to be happier; those are the times that those choices really stuck. No one made me do it, my hand wasn’t forced by the date on my China Garden wall calendar. The simple idea is that when you really want to change something, you will. And even if it’s hard or doesn’t look the way you expect it to at first, it will. If you really want it, If you work for it, if you nurture and love that change in your life; the way you used to love the crippling fear that you were stuck in something terrible, you can and will change your life.

I sometimes wonder to myself what things would look like if I hadn’t made this choice or that choice. I think about the things that I might have seen, done or accomplished had I not chosen a certain road to travel. The realization that I almost always come to is this. The lessons that I have learned, the things I have seen, the places that I have traveled and the moments I have had, the lives that I have changed on THIS road, right now; They matter so much more. They make me who I really am. They make me the person that I was really supposed to be all along. Not asking questions constantly that don’t really have answers, and certainly not taking shit from someone just because I have known them a long time and they have always been that way.

Even my perspective on people I don’t know has changed. I used to be so caught up in what was going on in my life. I used to think that there was no way that I could possibly help someone else when I often felt like my own life was a circus. Here’s what I can tell you about that. Strangers need and want much less than you think .  The person on the side of the road may have already called for help after their accident.  The older woman in the grocery store might like that she is able to bring her own cart to her car. It doesn’t matter sometimes that they CAN do it all on their own.  This is one I just learned.  I CAN handle all the adulting, but sometimes its really nice when someone wants to help you, even if its only offering you a high five.  I give out high fives and compliments like nobody’s business these days.  Because I came to the revelation that what might take me one minute to think in my mind, and one minute to say..that could stick with someone all day, and maybe they will do the same for someone else.  People helping People is not hard, and wont cost me a dime; it does however pay me back every time.

 

Stay tuned for all the hilarious Shenanigans that I have gotten into, all the moments of deep reflection, all the times that I had a PRO/CON list in front of me only to crumple it up and jump at the thing that scared me the most. This Diary, this expression of my life is far from over, and has come to what I feel is quite the sweet spot. I am in a thunderstorm of change, and when I stop to stand still in that rain, I feel exhilarated.