I Vow To Love The World: A Letter For 27

There’s a poem I wrote into my journal a few weeks ago about a dream I have. In this dream, I wake up and my heart hurts, yet I continue to love the world.

I run from end to end. There are no borders, only wind. My hand rests on my beating heart as I look at the people and the creatures around me and sometimes I feel like i feel too much and sometimes I feel so homesick for places I haven’t yet been.

More often than not I feel lonely until I remember that I am every photo I have taken, person I have held, book I have read and every secret I have kept.

I realise I am not alone because I am with 7 year old me running up the dunes off the coast of South Africa with my uncle’s german shepherds before diving into the ice cold Atlantic howling at the moon.
I am with 13 year old me who is scared going to school in a new country for the 3rd time but who walks home that day memorising the street names believing in the goodness of change.
I am with 17 year old me experiencing grief sitting in my car screaming along to cage the elephant’s cigarette daydreams thinking that nothing will ever hurt as bad as this.
I am with 19 year old me holding a doberman puppy who felt like everything I have ever lost come back to me.
I am with 22 year old me solo hiking in Slovenia feeling the most free I think I ever will feel.
I am with 24 year old me horseback riding through Kyrgyzstan feeling like this must be the most beautiful day of my life.
I am with 25 year old me pouring all of her energy and love into shelter dogs never having felt so fulfilled and exhausted at once.
I am with 26 year old me, breathing deep, letting go of anything I was so sure of once.

Joan Didion wrote about keeping in touch with the people we used to be. That what is lost circles back to us in other forms - I think that is what saves me.

I vow to love the world. To run from end to end, where there are no borders, only wind. I love so much it aches and if somebody opened me up all they’d find are landscapes. Mosaics of moments I once fleetingly felt at home in until the kaleidoscope changes once more.

I am grateful to be right here and now. Here’s to twenty seven.