Ashes of Aspiration

but at the end of the day, I know that this is all in my head. I talk too much to myself and not enough to other people. the people I love. I constantly put myself at war with those whom I love most because I have convinced myself so hard that I am so misunderstood. that no one can truly understand me...and I guess the only reason I think that is because I can’t take criticism. because i’m already so insecure as it is that I am not yet ready for improvement. but I know how lame of an excuse that is.

this is all new to me. the acceptance of such a large flaw that is so negatively affecting my relationships. I don’t want to be this angry girl all the time. it would be so hard to love me when i’m like this, especially when i’m refusing to communicate why, because I don’t even know why myself.

But I think that life rejected me today because it knows that my mind is in the wrong place. I’ve been preparing myself for this lesson for awhile now, knowing that I can only get so far if I’m not the one steering.

If there has ever been a time to trust in whatever shall be, I believe it is today. Life is teaching me a valuable lesson today. The lesson of rejection so that in turn I may learn the value of self worth. But not self worth as it is unto others, but self worth as it is unto myself. Self worth as I define it...or self worth as I finally give myself the space and breath to learn its meaning.

I believe that life rejected me today because it wants me to take a step back and evaluate who I am striving for. Because if it were for myself, I would be exactly where I need and want to be. But if for others, there is no need to be where it is that they want me to be, especially if I myself have no desire but to please them.

This is a hard one to face. My whole life’s work has led to this moment but it is my pure worry of other people that reassures me I am where I need to be. In a way, life broke the chains of obligation for me. It was this simple all along.

And so I’ve been at war with myself, hiding in an incredibly deep cave of fear and shame. I spent a lot of time directing my frustrations at the very people who I thought had dug me that cave. It took me a long ass time to come to terms with the fact that I was the only person who could’ve led myself there.

But this past weekend, I finally started to see light. Through months and years of dreading every time I had to look my past in the face, I am finally allowing it the space to heal and close its own door. I am finally making myself vulnerable to my mistakes, allowing them to cycle through their shames and their lessons.

I am finally starting to find strength in having made it this far; I am finally starting to find the will to be better than who I was. I have stopped relocating blame unto others and have finally realized the power that now lies in my hands to rebuild this path. I was wrong, and now I must begin to make it right again.

More than anything else, I am hopeful. But for the first time ever, I am felt good about the energy that I felt in a space where I used to feel so resented and alone. I am seeing the ease that comes with effort, and I am starting to see the love that has been buried under years of denial.

I am starting to see the light that I am bringing into his life by finally doing what it takes to show love for him. It feels as if a mountain has been lifted off of both of our backs. I feel incredibly empowered to have finally found this strength, and incredibly humbled to be apart of this family’s life despite the past.

I’m not making an enormous amount of money out of college because I’ve been spending all of my money feeding the curiosity that I’ve had ever since I was a kid. Every cent I make goes toward opening my eyes to yet another vast realm of this earth. I’m taking longer to get my doctorates degree because any time that I have now I am soaking into the strength of my youth, realizing that the marvel and adrenaline that adventure now gives me will likely never be as magnificent as it is now. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing with my career, but I suppose that is because I feel that this time in my life is better spent satisfying this underlying purpose that I’ve always felt for my life, and that there will be no more gratifying time to do it than now.

I may be a lot less responsibly successful than I have ever intended to be, but holy fuck taking even a single second to fathom how much I have done with my life at the age of 22 is heartwarmingly overwhelming. From bathing elephants in the mountain jungles of Thailand, to watching a thunder storm pass from one end of Bowman Lake to the other, to kissing my best friend under the glittering Tour Eiffel. From spending thousands of dollars to bathe in the most transforming melodies of our time, to hopping on dozens of planes within a single month span without a hell of an idea of what I’m doing. To finding my truest soul mate at such a young age with whom I get to experience this curious yet wildly phenomenal youth with, with whom I have already seen more of the earth than I could have ever imagined to see in my lifetime, with whom I have dreamt of so many adventures that we have promised ourselves we will live and experience one day. This was the shit I was born to do. To dance my heart out in a crowd of thousands of other kids under blinding bright lights filled with an ecstasy that we all feign to feel, to lie on the grass in Sandpoint underneath the vast galaxies that surround us all, pondering how the stars imploded just right so that we were able to become this minuscule of a focal point in the universe.