365 Project: Day 90

I saw a theme for a photography contest today: What is love? I think I might enter this image. Its not really the sappy hearts and flowers picture that the judges are probably expecting. I've written about love before, but I've never asked myself this specific question. What is love?

Honestly, I can say, I don't think I know anymore. My past experiences with love, in a romantic sense,  have gone from wonderful to frustrating, confusing, and painful. I've lost a lot of myself in relationships. Every time I meet someone new it only gets more and more difficult to give my heart away. Now days, I tend to keep a safe distance.

Each time a relationship ends I retreat to lick my wounds. I hide away and try to put myself back together, stitch by stitch. I won't let anyone in for a long time. Its tough to get through the layer of scar tissue that has grown around my heart. It gets thicker and harder with every break, every wound, every little prick of a hurt feeling.

Right now I feel like things are as they should be. My heart is back in its rightful place. The stitches will hold me together until I can heal completely. It'll take a while, but I'll be good as new one day.

So I ask myself...what is love? To me, love is a broken heart on the mend.

365 Project: Day 63

Everything is starting to line up, one thing after another. Like ducks in a row. Everything seems to be falling into place just as it should be.  

I had a conversation today about realizing and accepting that you are exactly where you're supposed to be at this moment in your life. Its a hard thing to come to terms with, especially when you thought you'd be somewhere else by now. There is ultimately a reason why you are where you are, and not where you think you should be. 

The past few months have been full of some major lessons for me. Its such a strange, but satisfying, feeling to realize that you are changing and growing as a person. I feel like I'm becoming who I was always meant to be. Its sort of like I've been living in the dark, endlessly searching for a switch and all of a sudden the light has come on. Like a moth to the flame, I'm drawn to it, powerless to resist its glow.

I'm slowly learning to let go and to stop trying to control every little thing. That is really hard for me. Every day it becomes more obvious that I have no control over anything. Life is just taking me along for the ride. What is supposed to happen, will happen no matter how much I try to force it or resist it.

Don't get me wrong, I am still working very hard, I am stressed out, and I am definitely exhausted. But I wouldn't be doing all of this if I didn't love every second of it. It seems like all of these amazing people keep coming into my life and these great opportunities keep presenting themselves. There is a beautiful momentum happening and I'm finally giving in and letting myself get swept away.

365 Project: Day 54

A cliff is a scary place to be. Get too close, even to just take a quick peek over the edge and the ground beneath you could crumble away, you could lose your balance, you could fall. Lately I've felt like I am on the verge of something bigger than myself. Some greater purpose. I don't know what it is, but I feel it so strongly.

I am constantly pushing myself toward personal growth and self discovery. What is my purpose? What am I truly capable of? My desire to know what is beyond my own boundaries consumes me.  Again and again I reach the very limits of my comfort zone and I slowly inch closer and closer to the brink. I get close, but I hesitate to take that final step into the unknown. My instinct is to hold back, clinging tightly to security.

John Burroughs said, "Leap, and the net will appear." I've learned this lesson time and time again. I've been lucky that every chance I've taken, though I was hesitant, once I gathered the courage to make that leap, I have found nothing but support. Somehow, there has always been a net to catch me.

So here I stand. Teetering on the verge of what comes next. Like a baby bird leaving the nest for the first time, I have to find the courage to take the plunge. I have to trust that I won't fall, because somewhere inside I know I can fly.