Author's note: I wrote this entry in May. Now it is September. Update at the end.
May: I turned 34 last week. For some reason I am experiencing feelings akin to those that accompany me around New Years. Wistfully looking back while hopefully looking forward. Yet trying to remain in the present.
I feel like I am standing on the edge of a foggy cliff, looking forward with one foot in the mist, not sure what I will find when I take a step.
A year ago I had entirely different plans for my life right now. I was supposed to be embarking on a year spent volunteering around the world.
I decided in Fall to cancel the trip and instead take a trip inside myself. In the form of psychoanalysis. Embarking on intensive therapy has been overwhelming, but something had to happen. For most of my life I have lived side by side with depression and anxiety, and have tried short stints in therapy to no avail. The only thing that I found helped was escaping. Running away from family and myself.
In addition to therapy I have started taking a Mindfulness Meditation class. The basic premise behind this is to center oneself and practice kindness and being present.
So 34 brings a lot.
Present: Here I am seated on my couch, September the 2nd. Reading over the post that I never posted. Afraid of others comments and judgments. Mostly afraid of my own self judgments. So there it is.
3 months have past, my relationship ended within days of writing that post, and thus I did step off the cliff. I am traveling roads I have never been on before, practicing sobriety to bring mental clarity, applying to school for a new career, and facing the world with the feeling that life is full of surprises.
Buddhism teaches that out of great loss & suffering comes great wisdom, and I have found this to be so true.
I do not know what is around every corner, and I am slowly giving up trying to figure it out, instead trying to have a gentle acceptance and open heart to all that presents itself.
Fall is about change, renewal, and introspection. I enter this Fall as wide awake as possible, with a curious mind and heart. Come on world, throw at me whatever you have, I am ready for it.
