First Prints on the World

"I have decided to be happy, because it is good for my health." ~Voltaire

Currently, I am a college student studying biological sciences. Animals are my passion and I am an optimist. I believe in the world and I believe in the future. I have traveled down many paths that are filled with uplifting parts as well as dark times. I was forced to face starting over and boy does it hurt your self-confidence. I began to look at life from a new side of things. It forced me to rebuild my life from scratch. I believe that my life is moving in a positive direction. My heart is in no way healed from the pains of life; however, I am choosing happiness. 

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!” ~Dr. Seuss

Mindfulness, yoga, journaling, and reading have all become important steps for me to keep my troubles at bay. I struggle from time to time yet somehow I always manage to pick myself back up.  

I am not one to try dwelling on a concept or idea; however, I almost always do to the point of exhaustion. Today someone asked me:

"If you could get out of the hurricane, would you choose to?"

Wow. I never thought of it like that before and I especially never felt I would have trouble answering that question either. I have been fighting so long to get out of the portions of my life that I struggled with, yet I realized tonight that perhaps my fighting is different than I thought it was. I know I'm afraid of the big bad world out there because leaving home again scares me. I feel like I need some sort of safety net as a way of saying to myself "You will never go down that dark road again. I am here to catch you."

Is that reality though? I am so afraid to fall right now. Part of my fear comes from what has happened the two times I moved from home and the other part feels like I will sabotage myself with a safety net just to say "See I told you I couldn't do it and I needed you."

What are my options now? My decision to leave the state was to get away and start over. I want to love this place again and currently all I want to do is strangle every corner or run and hide in somewhere that hasn't been tainted. Now, it may be possible that leaving the state has more to do with the lack of a safety net. I wonder if it isn't possible that leaving the state doesn't feel more safe but I know history tends to repeat itself unless we find the core reason why we went through what we did in the first place.  I'm struggling and I'm lonely internally more than, but also somewhat, externally.  Is it possible that this is caused by myself? How will I know? 

The reality is I may never know but life is a journey and my only options are to continue to allow it to be written while I also look at my past actions and experiences in order to find knowledge to avoid the pain in the future. I can do this. I want to... NO! I need to believe in my core that this is not it. Something is out there and I swear I will find it.

The promise land is not an imaginary place made in my head as a simple coping mechanism for the hard times I have faced; rather, it is a place that truly is in existence and just has not been reached by me.   

My promise land is not a land without heartbreak or without sadness. It is not an idealistic place where the world is only good and everyone there is always happy. I'm not sure where I heard it but "Without struggle, there can be no progress." It may seem strange but the major difference between my life now and how my life will be in the promise lands surrounds one major variant. When times get hard and things seem to be falling apart right and left, when my life throws my worst nightmares or seems as if there is no possible chance for happiness, the difference will be that someone will be there. Someone will just listen. Not judge me. Not tell me how to fix it. Someone will sit there and hold my pain with me. This person will not be forced in anyway to listen or to spend the time. They will choose it to be a priority because I will matter.

Are you going to choose to do anything in order to get your freedom or would you like to spend the rest of your life waiting to get free from the hurricane?

At this moment, I cannot tell you how it is going to work out or what my decision will be. I simply will tell you that your decision will be from the heart and although it may be a hardship you will find your promise land. I believe in it. I have faith.

Song for the moment: Lost By Gorilla Zoe