Earlier this week, I was on the phone with my best friend for two hours... TWO HOURS!!! That may not seem strange to some folks I know, as for me and her, it's unheard of. But if you think about it, with our work and life schedules, we see each other once every blue moon, even though we're about ten miles away. What was amazing about our conversation was that we both have found each other in a rookie 30's crisis.
For those two hours, her story aside (not my business to share), I just let all my thoughts, feelings, emotions and fears out... the outcome was amazing!!! Like I've said before, I tend to be a person of signs and a believer that God for whatever reason, will lay little cue cards out in front of you to help you figure out some of the more interesting parts of life. This past month has been no different.
People talk about how the thirties are the prime of your life; and so it far that statement to me seems true. But the thirties, with the excitement that it brings demands from us one thing: direction. I've arrived at that decade that I can't say, "you know what? I'm just going to work and party and start all over again in the morning." Instead, I've got to work with some kind of goal in mind so my life has a certain direction that it's going to follow, albeit if only for the next five years.
When I was in my twenties, I did the typical twenties things, partied, drank WAY too much, slept WAY too little, etc... I look back at those years and regret nothing. The mid to second half of that decade I was in my first relationship that I thought would last forever. (What can I say when you first fall in love?) Towards the second half, tragedy struck and I fell off the wagon. Only recently, have I started opening up to my siblings about my life after the passing of my dad; it's been almost five years and there are still moments where I just want to utterly break down and cry. My dad may not have been a perfect person, but he was still my father; a man that at that point I was only beginning to know.
Those first 2-3 years were horribly painful to me. I was lost, broken apart and had nowhere to really look for for help. I jumped in and out of beds looking for people who would care about me, faster than it takes most people to make coffee for themselves; I put myself in horrible situations where to this day, I don't know how I walked away unscathed. Almost five years later, I look back at those first few years and it scares me to think of the person I was, but it brings me hope to know that I can change for the better. During those years I was in another caring relationship that ended in a not so caring way; I learned that we can only be held responsible for our own actions and not those of others. What I did discover when I look back though were two things: at times the actions of another may have hurt us, but perhaps we both deserved some blame and second, I didn't spiral out of control. Yes the situation hurt me and I've been single since, but it also showed me that I can change for the better.
I look back at my twenties and they were full of joy and the spontaneity of a college student and the dream of living life to the fullest; yet they were also filled with alot of pain, self loathing, and complete disregard for the value of my own life. After the hardships of that decade, I glance over it all and see that for the most part, I fared pretty well. All I have to remind myself of my "lost" years is a post operative scar on my knee caused by my days of hard drugs, and my old reputation of warming the beds of the many Johns that in the end, cared nothing about me; as the years have gone by, that reputation I hope has begun to disappear. So onto the thirties I go...
I started this decade with a few pseudo permanent additions to my life. When I was 28, I bought a condo as a way to bring me to stability to my recently somewhat stabled out life. Again, I thought that God had laid out the signs for me, and I took it and ran with it; plus I was still in my last relationship where I thought we were going to move in together and so on. With that whole leap of faith, I decided to add in the addition of two fur balls as well. What's life without a little company right? And so my thirties began with an urbanized version of the white picket fence: a condo door, a tree lined balcony, a dog, a cat and the occasional corner side crackhead.
When I first got the condo, I thought that it was a spectacular idea. I mean why not? Not only do I have a roof over my head, but it's MY roof over MY head, no one elses. Yet as these last three years of condo living and almost five since my dad's passing have whizzed by, my point of view has changed a few times. After a year or so, I started looking at my condo like a shackle, binding me to this town, and my life as a lost soul roaming the streets of life asking for handouts on what to do. Three years ago, during the second half of the first year of my condo, I started a plan that was meant to bring me even more insight and adventure; I decided to take atleast one major trip to a place I've never been, screw the financial consequences. Since then I've been to Chicago, the eastern half of Canada, driven up and the down the East coast of the US, road tripped through parts of northern California, and as of recently, backpacked through western Europe. I did and continue to take these trips as my way of getting away from everything and getting back to the simplicities of lie.
It's been through my travels that I've seem to learn what bring me joy. For some it's relaxing on the beach with a drink in your hand, sunbathing to the sounds of the ocean. Or perhaps, it's taking one's kids to a baseball game or a park for a day. For me, joy comes from slipping a backpack on my back, putting on some good tennis shoes, grabbing a camera and journal, and walking to the next adventure. I've always been a nomad at heart, and if I could, I'd just travel the world, writing down all of my experiences and just savoring the joys of life that come with discovering new people and facets in the world. I've always been a dreamer and an optimist at heart, so traveling has always brought me so much happiness, even if it's never really been by the most luxurious means of living.
Something else I've recently have picked up on has been volunteerism. I've always enjoyed helping others who have been less fortunate, a trait of mine that I believe many have abused, yet a quality of mine that I try to use to help the world out. I look back at times now and wonder why I didn't start doing this more often and sooner; and the answer came to me quickly: excuses. I always made up excuses: I don't have the time. I don't want to wake up that early. I'm with someone so let me help them. The list of excuses is endless. Yet the reason to DO it is simple: to help others. I'm no saint, nor am I trying to paint myself as one, but I am trying to do right with the world and I do believe that if we can help just make one person smile and feel as if they're worth something, that our job for the day is finished.
At the soup kitchen I volunteer at, you don't know the story behind every person that comes for food, just like they don't know yours; all you see is gratitude and happiness in their eyes, and in yours, they see mercy and caring. The other day I had a man come up to me telling me how I looked like Lucille McBride. (It was probably the oh so fitting hair clip a lady let me borrow to keep my mane in control.) He spoke to me in ramblings and really had no coherent trail of thought, but when all was said and done, I just thanked him and smiled; turns out that man, I was later told, has never uttered a word to anyone, volunteer or guest. It made me smile, that although what seemed to me were the ramblings of an emotionally not completely intact man, were perhaps an attempt by him to show me his gratitude. I left the kitchen that day feeling great!
Aside from the volunteer work, I've also gotten back into music in ways I thought I'd never see again. Recording, producing, engineering... all these things I used to do years ago, I'm starting to do once again and it's just amazing the timing of it all. There's no better joy to me with music than to sit down with someone and see just how happy they are when I'm able to help them piece together a song of theirs and give it wings. I find it hard to describe the high that comes with musical collaboration; I'm hoping that this only continues to become a bigger part in my life as well.
All my babbling aside, seeing that I've written a novel today, comes down to one thing: pieces falling into place. These last five years, I've done many things good and bad that at the time had no real rhyme or reason, and as of recently, I left another situation that in the end seemed to be the right choice, even though I'm still licking my wounds (gotta love dating in Atlanta. Dating in this town is a whole other entry in and of itself), to find myself inadvertently, forming pieces of a puzzle that is by far greater than me. This was pretty much my two hour conversation in a not so succinct nutshell. But at the end of it all, it dawned on me, that all of the hell and happiness I've put myself through these last 11 years, mostly last 5 years, has been to transform me just like a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly.
If all goes well, within two years I'll find myself doing something I wanted to do when I graduated college, which is to join the Peace Corps. After I graduated I made excuses again not to do anything about it; fresh out of college I wanted to enjoy life and get that sought after "stable" job so I could live that "stable" life we're all told about. Now after living in a materially stable life, and an ever more emotionally growing one, I've realized that now may be the best time for me to act. I've finally been able to survive through a lot of pain I've lived through, and even though I'm still growing as a person, I'm now only having to worry about myself; the time just seems right to focus and rethink my life.
So with that, I hope to register for the Peace Corps within an extremely short time. The idea of doing so excites me so much, because not only do I get to help people who are less fortunate, but I also get to travel and learn of other cultures and societies; I think that at times, we forget how fortunate we are to have so many simple things in life that others merely dream of. If for whatever reason, within the two years that I takes to process my application I don't get accepted, well then again, I'll take it as sign from God that perhaps there's another path out there for me. But for now, I look at this as not so much the solution to my life, but perhaps, the direction in which my life was supposed to go this whole time. In the end, only God and life itself can be my teacher.
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