A Vow for 2018
For the past few months, I've been reflecting, resting, writing, running, and learning to sit with my thoughts—adjusting after being halfway across the world from all that was once familiar.
I left for Paris, and in what now feels like a small, infinite loop playing in my mind, I had the grandest adventures. Each place I visited became a home, cradling and comforting different parts of my heart. I met the most wonderful, electric, adventurous people, including a version of myself I now carry with me.
When I left Paris, it felt like I'd left part of myself there. I returned feeling lost and heartbroken, missing the person I'd become and the way the city had made me feel invincible.
Sometimes, we worry things will never be as good as they are now, but that's not true.
In the next year, in the next ten years even, I will experience countless new things for the first time. I'll see places and meet people who will return to me pieces of my past and parts of my soul I felt I'd lost along the way.
If I've learned anything in my 22 years of life—living in four different countries and nurturing this wild, restless heart—it's that people and places we've had to farewell always come back to us. They return in other forms—in music, scents, people, places, or feelings. But for this to happen, you must be brave.
I'm so grateful, and I vow to keep my heart open in 2018. I want every aspect of my life to be genuine: genuine love, connections, intentions, curiosity, and happiness. I want it to radiate through everything I do, think, and say. I want to detach myself from expectations and continually remind myself that life is happening for me, not to me.
I have finally realized that to feel more alive, I must be less afraid. Over a year ago, without realizing it, that's exactly what I did—I lost my fear and gained my whole life.
Who knows what's in store for the rest of it? I plan to find out, not from the passenger seat, but front and center in the pilot's seat. I have dreams of large crystal bowls, they glow in technicolour, they’re mysterious and foggy and I am mesmerised. I am not afraid. I feel ready, and patient, and playful. Life can sometimes feel a little too serious, and perhaps letting go of fear and embracing the theatre of it all is exactly what we need.