It's been a really long time.
I know.
It hasn't been quiet or uneventful months by any means. So much has happened. I have had so much to say, but not a lot of patience to sort through it all and put it into words.
Another winter gone by, and even though it's not over yet, I am relieved to have the holidays and snow behind me for the season. I came out on the other side of 2013 surprisingly okay. Unharmed really, although kind of busted up in my own ways. Actually, pretty damn busted up in my own ways. But It's halfway through February now and I can't hardly believe it's been a year since I sat in a cafe during my one night in Laos on Valentine's Day, eating a pink piece of cake alone and completely exploding with the possibilities of the universe. I felt really powerful. And, although I have to admit that piece of cake was actually pretty awful, at the time, I was so damned proud that I was there and able to eat it all alone in a city that I knew nobody in.
I remember that 12 hour overnight drive to the capitol of Laos. I needed to get my visa re-stamped because my 30 visa was fast approaching expiration.I had just barely gotten over my month-long panic attack from being in a new country without a clue in the world. I had never been set so free of responsibility and troubles in my life. Which ultimately brought on it's own set of troubles: I had no idea what to do with myself, or even who the hell I was.
Only days before that drive to the border, I spend my last night in Pai (the first of several trips to Pai) and I stopped. I finally gave myself permission to just shut up about it already, because ultimately I was terrorizing myself, and it wasn't serving me in any way. I was half way around the world. Yes, I had done it. Three cheers horray. But what was the point if I wasn't going to do the work I had gone there to do? At some point between that last night in Pai and that overnight death-defying van ride to the border, something amazing happened.
I stopped, and I listened. Really, truly listened. In a way that I haven't been able to listen since, or before. I heard the universe. I heard what had to say. And it was honestly the most amazing and beautiful feeling of my entire life.
I remember that van ride. On paper, it was awful. I am pretty sure the Thai driver was on stimulant drugs to stay awake, it was much too bumpy and windy to sleep. But somehow, against all odds, I was the most happy and hopeful girl in the whole entire world that night. I had my earbuds in, and I just looked out past all the dark tree shapes outside my window, and I felt like I saw the stars for the first time in my life. My eyes felt like they couldn't hold all the stars in them. But they wanted to. I felt like I was going to explode with all the love the universe had to give me and it didn't matter what happened to me, good or bad on that trip, I was love. And that had always been the truth, but I had just never known it until that moment. Wow.
It's been a year. I have never had a year like that, and I probably never will. Where am I now?
I am happy. I am hopeful.
And although I am not currently holding all the stars of the sky in my eyes, I am once again on that path to finding that feeling of truth again. My spirituality and connection isn't a destination, I have learned. It's not a place I can buy a ticket for, and land on the other side of the world to discover. It's going to evolve and change for me my whole life and take on new meanings and shapes until the day I die. It will probably never look the same from one year to the next, which is something I am coming to terms with. It's a really difficult task to chase something you want so badly, only to find that it has changed into something different the moment you approach it. I have realized that it really helps to not go through that chase alone. It is good to be strong enough to do it alone, but I no longer believe that I have to be alone to be strong enough.
Happy Valentine's Day, but every day is deserving of celebrating love.
