On August 2, 2011 I came back to this blog that I'd abandoned since spring, saying that I was starting it back up and I couldn't wait to get rolling again with my daily "likes." Well, that was short-lived, to say the least! That lasted one post before laziness and inner discouragement took back the reigns and inhibited my readiness to get myself on the path to finding consistent positivity and happiness again.
I've thought about this blog quite a bit since last August and how I hate how I didn't continue on with it. How I let anything and everything get in the way of keeping up with it. How missing one post would turn into three, which would turn into a week, and then all of a sudden it was months later and the blog was still stuck on some date so far in the past it was simply embarrassing to even think about starting it back up. I truly was my very own barrier there for awhile, but it's a time of my life that, now, I'm nothing but absolutely grateful for.
Over a month into the year and two weeks into my final semester of my undergraduate college career, I am in an incredible place, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally...And let me tell you, it's taken me, honestly, about a year and a half to two years of learning and discovery and experience and life to get to this place of true, joyful contentment. I've experienced the highest heights and the lowest valleys and through it all, here I stand (well, sit, at the moment) with a heart full of unadulterated joy. Peace. Gratefulness. I'm not saying happiness exactly, because there are days when I wake up and it's all I can do to haul myself out of bed, I go through the day sourly and with bitterness, and all I can do is dwell on how much I really just want to be sleeping or how much I'd love to take a little break and head home to Virginia for a few days or how much I want to, like, go on a tropical vacation on a private island in the tropics (okay, that last one isn't fully accurate, but every once and awhile I admit I've thought it!), and I come home at the end of the day as down as I left in the morning, unable to shake the negativity all day. I do, however, seem to have reached this place of honest joy. Joy, I feel, is an emotion I associate with peace. Calmness. Again, gratefulness. It's the place where I can be perfectly content with everything that this moment right here is holding--no matter how great or how awful--and be ready to proceed into the future with a sense of awareness for where I am at this time and the feeling of excitement to take on whatever task or adventure is thrown my way. I'll tell you, I can't put into words just how incredibly thankful I am to feel this way. It's truly an amazing realization to come to, experiencing joy like this. Because really, for the first time in a really long time, not one fiber of one bone in my body is dwelling in anxiety. And after a long road to get here, it's an amazing place to be :)
Without either the times of absolute victory or the tough spots and times of doubt and darkness, this newfound thankfulness for each and every day wouldn't be yet attainable for me. Over the last two years or so, I've had the time to learn just what it is that I'm capable of as far as my own influence on myself, both positively and negatively. I've learned what I have to do to achieve and I've learned what I can do, or not do, that keeps me in a place without progress. And now, being still at the start of an incredible new year and a promising semester before embarking on the next chapter of life, this is the time to take all of those experiences, all of those lessons and, most importantly, all of the tools I've been blessed with so far, and use them. It up to me to act and that time has come.
And I feel it. I feel the shift in perspective and approach to each day...I feel happiness for things that I wouldn't have let myself even acknowledge during the days of self-pity and self-doubt...I feel excited to work hard for my dreams and can approach the pieces of the puzzle that I find difficulty with or may not like as much as others with confidence and the willingness to problem solve. I keep saying it, but my heart and soul are calmed with peace, and all it took was time and then one moment when I knew enough was enough...No more moping, no more waiting, no more whining, no more excuses and no more temporary fixes.
It was time to move forward, so onward we go :)
I've been writing a lot this year, which has helped me with this gradual turnaround. (Looking back over the last few years of writing is really eye-opening and it's really amazing to see the twists and turns my daily life has taken! I highly recommend journaling to everyone.) So since writing has become a daily habit again, I figured now is the time to reinstate The "Like" List. My journal entries recently have been much more upbeat and I seem to be taking note of the small things throughout these days that are bringing me happiness so, again, now's the time for no excuses; embarrassment over incompletion won't keep me quiet any longer!
I'll do what I can to stay as updated as possible, but like I've said, learning how to live right here and right now is the beautiful gift I'm working every day to use and strengthen so I can't promise perfection. But I will promise genuine gratefulness in all accounts included :)
"Let your eyes look straight ahead,
fix your gaze directly before you.
Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.
Do not swerve to the right or left;
Keep your foot from evil."
(Proverbs 4:25-27)
Onward.
Today, new beginnings and renewed joy and gratefulness make me happy :)
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