Beginnings

This is an excerpt from my Journal last year. In 2013 I journeyed to Genova, Italy on a solo trip and lived with an Italian family and I reference them in this passage.

So is it really December 31, 2013? Sometime's I feel like the days blend together so wistfully, I often forget how much I have accomplished and how much has genuinely changed. This time last year I was at a bar in Rhode Island, in the bathroom the entire evening waiting for Josh's text messages. They say that how you spend midnight is a reflection on how you'll spend the year, and I believe that. Josh was an integral part of my new year, but much like Carlo taught me, I will not understand it as deeply as I will be able to until this is far behind me, if it ever is. One thing I know for sure is that he has been my constant in all of these changes, and maybe that's all I need to know for now.

This time last year, I was living with my parents, in a eucalyptus infused purple bedroom, where I learned to build a home inside of myself. Within a month, I would meet Carlo, Aba, Eleanora, and Gabriele and immediately feel a pull in my heart that told me to quit my horrible, dehumanizing, job and board a plane to Genova, Italy, the home of my ancestors. I ended up finding myself, in another eucalyptus infused bedroom, a quarter of the size, in Italy.

I navigated airports, and train stations, and strangers, back packs, and hostels. I navigated around men, with a feeling in my gut that always steered me the right way. I exercised self control around a man with whom I longed for desperately, and knew longed for me, but morality trumped all, and always will.

I made mistakes. I said the wrong thing at times, I became anxious, ate too much, talked too quickly, and drank too much caffeine. I talked too much. I was attention seeking and impulsive. But through out all of these things, life went on. Life went on to form the beautiful collage of photo's pasted at the beginning of this entry. And that is the big picture, and it always will be.

And now I sit, in yet another eucalyptus infused bedroom in my very own apartment in Cambridge Massachusetts with a job that I love. I rid myself of many toxic friendships this year, and set boundaries amongst those that remain. Sometimes I'm lonely, but you know what.. if there is one thing I've learned it's to stop being scared to walk alone. I kind of like my own company. And I will never leave.

So in my own company, I remind myself that I would not like to spend time with another person that hurts me, and I will not allow myself to be one of those people. I remind myself that sometimes I've been wrong about things, but if I stop trying to force things, stop looking at how things should be, or how perfect they could be, and start trusting, things turn out perfect any ways. They already are perfect, in their imperfectness. 

This year I've learned more than ever how limited our time is on this earth, and stopped being afraid of that. I believe some day this will all make sense, just like with writing, things that are unclear to us in the present  we will come to know in time. But for now, I'd like to give it my best, I'd like to keep trying, I'd like to wake up each morning with hope and love. I'd like to spend more time with people that fuel me, and that don't drain me. Imagine that? "I am always at the beginning." - The aged Buddha, on being asked what life was like.

We are all always at the beginning, every day. So here's to another great one, today.