I have found it difficult to write lately. In the past, writing has been a special and intimate thing for me. It has allowed me to process the things my body, mind and heart have experienced. It is often through writing that I have found myself articulating the things I have tried tirelessly to express verbally. Yet lately, the space created when sitting down to write become a scary place full of treacherous twists and turns that I wasn’t sure I was ready, or able, to navigate. Writing meant being brutally honest with myself, facing the parts of myself I had been turning my eyes from for so long.
Reflecting on life is easy when life is full of rousing adventures. When there are new things at every turn it is easy to focus outward, observing the world with wide-eyed curiosity. That curiosity has driven me for the last several years, making my current, stationary position difficult to stomach. Being stationary in the place I grew up means I can’t fight the inward gaze. There are no thousand-year-old buildings or millions of New Yorkers to divert it any longer. It’s just me. So what now?
Now, I have to figure out who this girl is and how she fits into the world. I need to take what I have learned and somehow integrate. I need to practice being me, in the most authentic sense, even when that person is selfish, or naïve, or scared.
Today, my attempt at an authentic self includes a morning of yoga that made me want to collapse onto the earth in exhausted surrender and a sunny afternoon alongside a chai tea with just the right amount of spice to awaken my mind. In this moment, I have much gratitude for everything I have been offered.
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