For as long as I can remember, I've been consumed with this inexplicable desire for something more. What exactly that more is, remains illusive to me. I just know that somewhere deep within my core, my soul is looking for something that it hasn't yet found.
Almost serendipitously, while packing up my room, I came across the incriminating thoughts of my 13-year old self's journal. She wrote about wanting adventure and spontaneity. She wrote about being willing to pack up her bags, hit the road and look for an adventure. And if you can even believe it, she wrote about wanting to be audacious.
I was looking for the words that my 13-year old self already found. In order to attract what you want, you have to become it with your whole being. You have to speak it into existence and everything in the universe will conspire to make it happen for you.
So I'm going to go ahead and say it: I want to see every inch of this beautiful home we call earth. I want to witness the beauty in humanity and human connectedness. I want deep and vulnerable conversations. I want to be surrounded by people who are willing to go to the depths of their minds and souls to understand their true life's purpose. I want to become and attract love so deep, that not even death could keep us apart. I want my presence on this earth to mean something.
And for me to find what I want, I need to leave everything familiar behind. I think people often misunderstand leaving something - whether it be a job, or place or person, for discontentment. When in reality, when you gain some perspective, leaving just means you've learned everything something or someone was meant to teach you and it's time to move on. Whether I am connected to you by love or pain, joy or heartbreak, whether you're still in my life or not, I am who I am because of what you've taught me. I am where I am because of you.
Sometimes growing looks different. Sometimes it's moving one step forward and two steps back. For me, it was moving out and then moving back home. It was getting my dream job, and then losing it. It was sending messages that were left unanswered. It was loving people who didn't love me back.
But it was also, accepting that understanding myself is better than seeking to be understood. It was surrounding myself with people who want to be in my life instead of clinging to the ones who don't. It was figuring out my identity without the sadness. I learned to honour Daniel by living instead of more grief.
13-year old me felt trapped because she couldn't drive and was too young to leave her hometown. Well now, I can drive and I am old enough. But the one thing she always had was the gumption and passion for something more. And because of her, I am where I am today, which is....
Living in Japan.
Xoxo
Audacious Fool