Sometimes you get everything you want without realizing it. Countless times I peaked just short of this. Work would be great, the boy I liked would be interested in me enough for me to notice, small goals were being achieved. I would grasp onto this vision with my whole strength and then, in almost no time, it would all fall apart like a fragile sugar sculpture squeezed between hands too tight and I would start again from scratch.
This afternoon, in my lazy attempt at packing I came across my journal from Fall 2008. I had just started a new job that would become my first career and was learning to goal set. I was deeply passionate about a lovely boy who lived in England and when writing my first 10 year vision I stated that I would be the Manager of a store in London. Not a possibility at the time it is likely that just such an opportunity will become available in the near future and it will not be me who fills it. This got me thinking of how different my 'perfect' vision life is now and how much closer it is than that distant place across the Atlantic.
Now instead of that relationship I want one based on new criteria, and a little closer to home. Instead of running a big store in a big city I want my own business, built from the ground up by my own hands. I want happiness, nature, creativity, and freedom. I want things that didn't define my young, 23 year old life. I didn't know better.
I am currently not employed by anyone other than myself. I am single, having not yet to met that man who both catches my fancy and is strong (read:brave) enough to take me on, though a few have fallen into the first category! I am not all those things that I used to compare myself against when looking at where I stood in terms of achievement.
The thing is, looking at my bucket list I have crossed off far more in the last two months (or will shortly cross off) than in the prior 3 years I have had a list for. I have ran a 10km race, will attend a music festival at the Gorge, I have sold my art, am about to be published, I teach yoga. All the things that when I cross them off the list really make me feel complete. Knowing that my days are numbered in this city I am finally ready to leave it for a while and move forward (sorry friends who have heard me complain about leaving for the past month or so). More than being successful at a job or having a boyfriend for the sake of it I have found a deep sense of community here. I have created and nurtured strong relationships not based on circumstance but on some strange desire to spend copious amounts of time together. I have cleaned up my messes, not so much the ones inside my car or bedroom but the ones that prevented me from moving on.
My big realization is that it is not what you have, what titles you place on yourself or others place on you, how you can define your self in terms of status that matter. If I smile, laugh, sometimes shed a few tears, if I feel something that is what I want. If I can say that my work makes me happy and satisfied then that is more significant than titles and salaries. One day the money will come. Standing in almost nothing I feel like I have everything I want and all else is coming, without noticing, without trying quite so hard. Big. Love.
This afternoon, in my lazy attempt at packing I came across my journal from Fall 2008. I had just started a new job that would become my first career and was learning to goal set. I was deeply passionate about a lovely boy who lived in England and when writing my first 10 year vision I stated that I would be the Manager of a store in London. Not a possibility at the time it is likely that just such an opportunity will become available in the near future and it will not be me who fills it. This got me thinking of how different my 'perfect' vision life is now and how much closer it is than that distant place across the Atlantic.
Now instead of that relationship I want one based on new criteria, and a little closer to home. Instead of running a big store in a big city I want my own business, built from the ground up by my own hands. I want happiness, nature, creativity, and freedom. I want things that didn't define my young, 23 year old life. I didn't know better.
I am currently not employed by anyone other than myself. I am single, having not yet to met that man who both catches my fancy and is strong (read:brave) enough to take me on, though a few have fallen into the first category! I am not all those things that I used to compare myself against when looking at where I stood in terms of achievement.
The thing is, looking at my bucket list I have crossed off far more in the last two months (or will shortly cross off) than in the prior 3 years I have had a list for. I have ran a 10km race, will attend a music festival at the Gorge, I have sold my art, am about to be published, I teach yoga. All the things that when I cross them off the list really make me feel complete. Knowing that my days are numbered in this city I am finally ready to leave it for a while and move forward (sorry friends who have heard me complain about leaving for the past month or so). More than being successful at a job or having a boyfriend for the sake of it I have found a deep sense of community here. I have created and nurtured strong relationships not based on circumstance but on some strange desire to spend copious amounts of time together. I have cleaned up my messes, not so much the ones inside my car or bedroom but the ones that prevented me from moving on.
My big realization is that it is not what you have, what titles you place on yourself or others place on you, how you can define your self in terms of status that matter. If I smile, laugh, sometimes shed a few tears, if I feel something that is what I want. If I can say that my work makes me happy and satisfied then that is more significant than titles and salaries. One day the money will come. Standing in almost nothing I feel like I have everything I want and all else is coming, without noticing, without trying quite so hard. Big. Love.
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