It’s only January, but I’ve been in a “spring cleaning” mood these past few weeks. I can hardly wait to start this weekend, in whatever spare moments I have, giving old things away and hanging artwork.
My ‘blog flashback’ today is from last year, almost exactly one year ago:
I’m in the middle of getting ready for a Starbucks girls night.
I need one, and I totally deserve it after working so hard this week. It felt never ending.
As I’m changing clothes, fussing with my hair, and playing with the cat….my itunes is on random. Happily skipping from song to song, it’s giving me peace and a calm heart.
Until the last song.
This last song has me remembering things I buried a long time ago, things I wish I could erase. It has me wondering what would have been different if I had been different, and if I had lied instead of told the truth. One single moment of honesty out of the long list of lies I have ever told…and here I sit.
In Washington. Five years later (almost to the day), and wondering what would have been different. Me, as I know myself now, could never have settled; I am too restless, too eager, too searching. I would have learned how, but I could never have lived up to it all.
However, somewhere deep down, I’m curious. Every single thing that happened in those weeks has put me in the exact position I am in today, a flip was switched and I have never been the same. I have never wanted to be the same.
It always pays to tell the truth.
One year later, I’m in a similar situation again. Except I’m not “remembering” it from the past, but reliving it again. Every word, every action, every choice is going to take me down a road that I’m going to have to be okay with. I don’t run away anymore, I won’t move away this time from the memories, but face them looking forward. At some point, I’m going to be forced to walk away from something, but it won’t be because I’m scared.
Not again.
There is definitely something to be said about forgiveness, learning, and truly being an adult. Becoming someone that I don’t have to explain, well, that’s pretty fucking cool. The greatest different between that last journal entry and now is that knowing that whatever choices I’m going to make in this lifetime…they won’t be because I’m settling. And that I don’t have to explain a damn thing. To anyone.
Unexpected Liberation 