I have felt different ever since I can remember. Not quite feeling as though I fit in anywhere except when I was outside. Have you seen the hashtag #notfromhere? That just about sums it up. Though I think perhaps none of us are really from here, other people seem to know just what it is they are supposed to be doing. Me, not so much.
After living for so long in healing mode, it is an interesting place to be where I am now:
ready to reenter the world.
In many ways I feel miles behind those who have been working their careers for years. Fat IRAs and lots of experience. I admire other people who have steadily pursued particular lines of work. Those who have raised their children in the same house with the same childhood friendships, much like the way I grew up.
In other ways I am light years ahead of where I once was and a much more authentic version of myself. I cannot squish the fact that everything feels different now. Nor would I want to for the pieces are beginning to align and I finally understand more about that deep seated alien feeling that has followed me around since birth.
We each have a unique story and I am learning to embrace mine. College degrees never made sense to me and I have worked enough jobs since then to know what I find to be truly important. It hasn’t been money, though I realize the importance of that, too. I have chased experience. Longed for nature based adventure. Freedom to take walks during the day and to live in a place that sings to me. Time to explore the beauty all around. To create a life in alignment with the deepest part of my soul.
My least favorite question is “what do you do for work” because I have always thought it should be an easy answer. Same goes for “what did you get your degree in?” My answer is a long winded roundabout explanation that hints on longing to do something magnificent. Important. Creative. That makes me feel fully alive. That helps other people and celebrates Mother Nature. But figuring out just what this means has been a mysterious endurance race for the majority of my life thus far.
The grind never held a candle to what I have truly wanted to do and the idea of climbing any type of ladder felt excruciating, threatening to snuff out my spark. A deeper sense of purpose has always tugged at my bones. It’s hard to describe but perhaps you have felt it, too. I thought I would someday stumble upon it, as if it existed in a particular location and we moved many times in search of this elusive destination. As it goes, it has been through the process of holding still and healing that has allowed me to understand that just what I have been searching for has been with me this entire time.
What delights me the most these days is that I feel like I am very close to finally finding it.
The sun calls my name and out I go to see it’s beauty. The sky talks to me, whispering its secrets in my ear. Most nights my dreams transport me to different dimensions. I have so many questions and a few of the answers and I long to share what I see and how I see it with the world at large.
After living so long in illness-induced isolation, the importance of the grass and the snowflakes and the sparkling wind has become paramount to me. A quiet life leads one to be able to notice these things. And I no longer just notice them, I am fully immersed in them. My life revolves around the light. I am becoming Wild Peace and this is what I want to do with my time: share the beauty.
A couple years ago, I received a message in the midst of recovery and it has stuck with me: You find it. Or perhaps more accurately: it finds you.
I haven’t been able to stop taking pictures. My phone is bulging with over 22,000+ photos and I am trying to learn how to transfer them into the cloud. Trying to learn how to use a “real” camera, and trying to figure out how to turn photography/art/writing into my livelihood.
The best part of this whole thing goes back to when I was about 10 years old. Perhaps you have already heard this part of my story but I don't mind repeating myself sometimes, especially from the perspective I have now. It was 4th grade and I had fallen in love with Colorado during a school project. I couldn’t even believe the magnificence of the peaks. It was a deep recognition. A calling to come home and I was completely captivated. My mom found numerous nature calendars with mountains galore and gave them to me to plaster all over my preteen walls. For the rest of my childhood, my room was transformed into a giant colorful collage and I could teleport to the faraway scenes every time I closed the door.
There was one picture in particular that I clearly remember. It was a water droplet caught in the curl of a plant stem. The background was pink and inside the droplet you could see the flower in its entirety. I found it so beautiful that I made two copies at Meijer, put them in frames and gave them to my mom and sister for Christmas. Now the number one thing I want to do is to be able to take my own pictures of water droplets as close up as possible.
It feels full circle, this discovery of what makes me feel alive and just what I want to be doing. And I realize I am not behind at all, but rather right on time.
I am meeting with a local printer today to talk about bringing my dreams to life. I can't wait.
We are all right on time in our own beautiful life story.
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