It has been a few months and a few adventures since I have written or even attempted to put my thoughts into words (aside from the few feverish late night journal scribbles). So here is a brief life update and a summary of those late night scribbles that I will attempt to make into a cohesive post (here we go!).
So far adulthood has been hard and trying but also humbling and inspiring. I have been struggling to feel a sense of community and build friendships and wrap my head around not knowing what comes next. For me, the beauty of University was the abundance of moments and the impatience and fear of having those moments be wasted. It made me feel the need to take in every second and make the absolute most of them. Yet in adulthood I have been having a hard time feeling the depth in moments and seeing the urgency and potential. Perhaps it is because I don’t have a time limit on this portion of life so I don’t feel the same level of stress about letting moments pass me by. And maybe that is a good thing, to just allow myself to live and do whatever my soul needs at that current moment and not worry about what my next step is. But allowing myself that space to just be and let go and settle into a routine, is a big learning curve and something I have been struggling to be okay with.
Overall, I have found it is so easy to focus on what I don’t have (as those feelings of fear or loneliness or failure can consume every cell in my body) and it takes a lot of effort to look at what I do have. But it is so so important to look at both, to reflect and take time to give thanks and access where I am at emotionally, physically and spiritually. By looking past what isn’t going the way I expected, I can pay attention to the people around me and the things that are going right and celebrate and feel joy in where I am and what I have in my life.
For instance, in my mind, these past couple of months I have felt like I haven’t been adventuring as much as I would like to be. Yet I have spent a weekend in Seattle camping and hiking and seeing Bon Iver live, I’ve driven the coast multiple times to hike and eat pie and read by the waves, I went to Arizona to see my family, have done numerous hikes around the Bay area, have been going to sound journey classes and energy healing sessions and have started to search for ways to be more involved in environmental action. Even writing it out now, I am mad at myself for feeling as though I am not doing enough - cause that list is full of so many things that make my heart sing.
Most of it is driven by thoughts. Thoughts of not being good enough or not doing enough compared to others around me or not giving enough to the people in my life. This all stems from internal fear as well as pressure from others and seeing people doing things I could only dream of. But our success is our own and our life is our own and our joy is our own so why aren’t we living it the way we want to be and not comparing every moment to other people’s success? It’s our choice how we want to live this beautiful life and how we want to seek out and find fulfillment, it shouldn’t be based on what others are doing and feeling inadequate in comparison.
It’s easy to ask myself every day why aren’t you out there living in a van or traveling around New Zealand or learning about cultures in far off places and being immersed in new landscapes? Why aren’t you filling your soul in the corners of far off lands and living off the beauty of the world? Why aren’t you taking 6 months off to hike the PCT, or road-trip around the US or live in Alaska? But with time the adventures I am meant to take will happen (especially if I really want them too) and I need to be okay being present in this period of life I am in now, instead of just constantly thinking of what comes next.
Life is full of choices and chances and moments and opportunities and love and joy and beauty and good gracious sometimes it is hard to see all that. But all of that hope exists, it’s just a question of if you care to see it, if you care to change your outlook and embrace the messiness and the unknown and the pure magic. The truth is none of us really know what is going on or where our lives are leading. But why not be okay in that uncertainty? Why not embrace the unknown and the not knowing? And just connect to the people and places that make us feel most alive. That, that will lead to a life full of so much soul filling beauty and that’s all I could ever ask for.
Pictures from the past couple of months (musings continued after):
1 apple pie, 1 trip to Seattle, 5 tents, 7 hikes, 8 Chai Tea Lattes, 1 cheese making class, 1 broken tree, 5 new plants, 1 new camera, 3 tv commercials, 1 bundle of dried eucalyptus, 1 sound healing class, 1 energy journey session, 4 gems shops, 3 beaches, 2 books, 1 large earthquake, 1 trip to Arizona, 80 FaceTime calls with Meg, 4 road-trip life chat sessions and so many other moments I am completely forgetting. We are here. Adulthood. She is trying and hard but full of so much potential and opportunity. Here’s to making the most of it and learning to let go and just experience.
Cheers - keleniak
#heckya