Life is an Adventure

Not every moment in our lives are monumental, yet each moment is pertinent to every event.  You can be living, but not be alive.  You can be awake, and asleep, at the same time.  You can go through the motions of life, yet be detached, and essentially be the walking dead.  I know, I’m an expert.

Wake up!

Life is an adventure.  That’s not to say that life is only full of good things.  Adventures are not just good experiences.  Every adventure I’ve ever been a part of has usually been fraught with roadblocks, detours, obstacles, ups, downs, good times and bad.  If calculated, it’s more than likely filled with more bad than good, but that really doesn’t matter.  The point of the matter is that I’m awake and I’m living.  I’m feeling everything.

There was a time I felt nothing.  I had closed everything off so much I could literally feel nothing.  By every societal expectation, my life looked almost perfect. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years went by in a routine, doing the same empty things day after day, and was praised for it.  I wish I could blame anyone else, but the only blame lay at my own feet.

I blinked.

Now this is where the story is supposed to turn around and all the good things in life are to come rushing in and overwhelm me, and Karma pays me back for all the good I’ve done to balance out all the bad I’ve experienced.  I don’t live in a fairy tale.  Things changed all right – I  opened my eyes to find I had created a place of desolation.  The only difference now, I could see and feel everything – and everything crumbled around me.

But, this isn’t a sad story by any measure.  It’s about an adventure, remember.

Walking out of a place of desolation takes time.  Your atrophied muscles have to get used to moving, your lungs have to get used to breathing in and out, and your heart has to get used to pumping blood, and they protest and hurt and ache, yet you can’t stop.  Staying still only puts you back to sleep.  Putting one step in front of the other you will eventually make progress.

You can’t take the desolation with you, you have to leave it behind, keep your eyes forward, keep your feet moving no matter how much it hurts, and the ground below you will eventually turn from burned ash to a barren desert, to a budding meadow, and eventually to a lush paradise.

Life is beautiful – all of it – the good, the bad, and even the ugly is beautiful – because life is movement, it’s precious, it’s unique, it’s individual, it’s a gift, it’s an adventure.

We think we  have no control over the adventures we experience in this life, but that’s not entirely true.  While there are obstacles we have to face as our life’s adventure crosses the adventures of other lives, we are the Captains of our own souls.  We must learn to overcome and adapt, to know when to defend and when to attack, when to fight and when to help.  We will get knocked down, but our only true choice is to get back up.

Be grateful for your life.  Get excited about your adventure.  Breathe. I can’t say it will always be alright, but I can say that living as loud as you can is worth it.  You are worth it, even if no one else in this world can see that.

Till next time,

Life Adventurer

Being Comfortable in My Own Skin

Those who know me know I’ve never really been on my own.  I come from a large family, having five brothers which I helped raise, to starting my own family right out of high school.  I spent the next two and a half decades juggling family, college, church, and career.  Those were very important times in my life, and the experience of them shaped so many of my thoughts, values, likes, and dislikes. It completely dictated what I did and didn’t do.

I’m in a new time in my life, a single time, and most often an alone time.  I never had alone time before and it takes some getting used to – because now I have no distractions to keep me from focusing on my own needs, discovering my own wants, and exploring my own desires.  I’ve been a Martha for so long, I quite honestly don’t know how to be a good Mary. I am learning, though, and I have to admit, I really like what I’m discovering.  I’m finding out it’s not so bad being comfortable in my own skin.

So much has changed in my life over the last couple of years, and one of those things have been my groups of friends. I’ve learned that not everybody who told me they love me really did.  They loved the “idea” of loving me, but the execution wasn’t so simple. It’s not their fault either, I didn’t make it easy to love me, and I still don’t.  For many years, I didn’t love myself and no matter how much anyone else loved me, it didn’t help.  I really didn’t know what love was, not real love. I still don’t – really, other than the love I’ve developed for myself, my children, my God, and a few very special friends.

Friends are important.  I’m beginning to think they’re much more important than a lover, but let’s wait until I get a lover and see if my mind changes on that aspect.  Being able to share myself and things in common with people I care about is very important.  I’m a social being.  I’m not meant to be alone and isolated, none of us are.  We need each interaction, we need stimulation, and we need human contact.  But, I’m learning to appreciate solitude, being comfortable in doing things alone, because other people are not going to always be there.  People come and go in my life, and no matter how much I plan on their presence being there, nothing is guaranteed.  I’ve spent too much of my life ‘waiting’ on someone else and allowed too many of my dreams to slip through my fingers because I couldn’t get someone else to be with me, help me, or go with me.  No more. 

If I don’t have anyone to go with me to a place I desire to go, or to do something I desire to do, I’m okay being on my own. The times I have been alone felt a little strange at first, but I’ve come to enjoy them.  Yesterday, I spent the whole day alone - and I loved every minute of it.  It was nice that I didn’t need anyone else to have a good time.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to become a hermit and isolate myself from humanity because I’ve learned I don’t need anyone.  It’s just nice to know I’m enough company for myself.  I still have wants and desires, and one of those desires is to share my life with someone special, to have a great romance, to be somebody’s bright spot, to have lots of wonderful, loving friends, and to live a life full of adventure.  Friends may come and go, a prince may never arrive on his white stallion and sweep me off my feet, or I may not accomplish everything I’ve set my mind to do – but at least it won’t be because I waited on someone else.  I’m not waiting on anyone anymore, except myself.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

I'm Hanging Up my Cape for a Compass

The world is a crazy place.  The earth is a beautiful wonder, a magical exclamation of awe and excellence. People inside it come in all shapes, sizes, and ideals.  I have to shake my head sometimes at the ignorance and intolerance that spreads like an incurable disease, but I refuse to let it destroy my view and make it an ugly place.  I’m weary from trying to save it, when I can’t even save myself.

I’ve allowed too many people to steal my dreams and crush my hopes, that I’ve become quite protective over them these days.  I no longer trust the words of “someday” or “tomorrow” because those never seem to come and end up being broken promises.  I am learning to live in the day.  I’m learning to be happy with me and do what I can to make my immediate world a better place - not by fighting some political, social, or spiritual war, but by loving myself and extending what love I can to those around me or who I might meet. 

Ask yourself…

1.  Who are you?  Really, look deep inside and determine who you are – what you like, what moves you, what you dream, what you desire, what makes you happy.
2. Where have you been? Have you been somewhere in your life you cherish and that made your soul sing?  If not, what keeps you from going out and exploring the world to find that place?  Are you afraid?  What excuses do you use to keep you where you are?  What about circumstances in life – are you where you want to be? 
3. What have you done?  What have you done for yourself, for others, for the world?  What impact on this earth have you made?  What mark will you leave? 

We only get so many days on this earth, and we have no control when that last day will come, and it’s up to US – not someone else – to make the best of the days we have.  It’s the everyday, little decisions and moments that make up our lives, it’s where we do our living.  What do you fill your moments with?  What are the consequences for those little decisions?

I want to go, I want to do, I want to see, I want to experience, I want to explore, I want to know, I want to taste, and I want to feel – EVERYTHING.  I want to make wild, passionate love, I want to laugh, I want to dance, I want to sing, I want to be loved.

I’m making plans -  but I’m going even one step further than that because I’m not waiting on tomorrow and someday – and I’m doing.  You can either come along with me, or stay behind.  I can’t let anyone steal these things from me any longer or crush my hopes for them in my life.  Someone else can save the world.  I’m hanging up my cape for a compass.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Sensory Reminiscences

There's nothing I think more potent in transporting us instantly like sensory memories.  A certain smell, a certain scene, a certain song, a certain color, a certain feeling, a certain word or phrase, etc.  All these are able to instantly trigger a memory or a feelings in our minds and take us back to a connecting memory.

I'd love to say that one memory sense is more potent than another, but I'm finding that's just not true.  It depends on the measure of contact.  As a writer and working in literary field, I'm surrounded by words.  I work with words, I play with words, and I often dreams about words, so needless to say certain words, phrases, book covers, lines of prose, familiar passages of poetry are able to trigger different memories in my life at any given moment.  I've learned over the years to avoid certain types of words for that particular reason, because there's just some things you don't want to remember. 

This morning, however, it wasn't words that have transported me, but music.  I had one of the best adventures of my life last summer.  This morning my iPod was set to scramble and played songs at random and a song by MSMR came up in queue.  I was going about my business as usual when their song Hurricane started playing.  My body reacted before my mind was able to comprehend.  I froze in place, my fingers literally stopped typing, my mind jumped to a sensory memory of a particular moment standing outside an airport.  My breath caught.  My throat tightened.  I re-felt that moment of nervousness.  My stomach fluttered in anticipation.  My hands shook.  In the original moment, I had never been more excited and more afraid in my entire life.  In this moment, for just a second, I once again felt that sensation. Then, I couldn't stop the tears. 

The sad part wasn't remembering the wonderful scene, I cherish it and hope to remember it forever. What hurt was realizing how far I've retreated, how much I've stuffed a particular part of my life back into it's familiar and comfortable box. I had promised myself not to do such a thing. I've come too far to go back. I deserve to move forward.

I've set my iPod to play that album over the next few weeks, not so I can remember that beautiful summer, but to remind myself of the promises I've made, and I can once again start breaking down those damned walls. 

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray