Friday, August 26, 2011
. next fold of the future.
I've historically had a hard time accepting where I am in the journey of life. I'm an obsessively efficient person who likes to have a plan -- the little plan and The Big Plan. The temporary plan and The Longterm Plan. I like to-do lists and clear directions and experiencing creativity within certain bounds. However, life so recently post-college has not allowed for those preferences to be reality. Instead, I've experienced my fair share of uncertainty, frustration, and changing my mind.
But today, I finally got around to accepting that.
I have to accept not only that I don't have it figured out, but that I have no real way of figuring it out right now.
It makes a lot of sense, but it's easier said than done.
But a good place to start is figuring out what you're thankful for and going from there.
I'm really thankful for the place I'm in. I'm frustrated by it -- it makes me want to pull my hair out and scream on a daily basis, at the very least. But I'm thankful for it anyway. I think the very best things in life are that way.
I'm thankful for the sweet season of college that I'm leaving behind. It was all different shades of difficult, but I became who I am in those years, in this town.
I'm thankful that I had something as wonderful as photography to pay the bills, to pay for my cute little apartment on the second floor, and to make me some of the best friends I've ever had.
And now, I'm thankful for a brand new start that I hadn't anticipated or asked for…one that not everyone has the chance to experience.
I'm thankful to be young, to have lots of dreams that tumble all over each other for the chance to be lived out. I'm thankful to have the support of great people who are smarter than me. And I'm thankful to have loved and lived and squeezed all the opportunity and potential out of the past 6 years.
Now, all that's left to do is toast to the future -- whatever it may bring -- and take the leap.
“The past and present wilt -- I have filled them, emptied them, and proceed to fill my next fold of the future.”
-Walt Whitman
much love,
p
Comments Widget
I think it's good to be in the business of figuring out what makes you feel alive and surrounding yourself with those things.
Over the past three days, I've done a lot of things that make me feel alive. I've taken photos on my iPhone of things worth taking pictures of. That, to me, is an accomplishment. I've left my computer off and I've engaged in real conversations, real relationships.
In moments like that, the messiness of life feels less like an inconvenience and more like the way things are supposed to be. In those moments, it's a lot easier to feel inspired and figure out what's important. It finally feels like I got my head above water and like things will be ok -- maybe not in the ways I had thought, but ok nonetheless.
