It has been a while since I have written. I think I needed some time to process and feel all the change that life is currently bringing. And what fascinating change it is.
Over New Years I took some time to head out to the mountains with some close friends, reflect on 2009, and enjoy the moment. Although our cabin contained nine people in a one bedroom, I managed to take some alone time while on the slopes and also a solo jacuzzi session. Living in a home with four other girls, sharing a room with two of them, taking group trips to cut costs (the more the merrier anyways), couch surfing when needed, and working everyday from coffee shops with free wifi with several other people straining to get a seat with an electrical outlet, you can imagine how valuable alone time is. One thing that I noticed about my alone time in comparison to the past is that because I am constantly surrounded by people, alone time feels REALLY lonely. But also, allows for some really powerful thought processes to surface.
In attempt to describe one of my many self realizations during my trip: I sat there in the jacuzzi, feeling the heat of the water and the cold from the frost falling from the sky on my face, taking the time to appreciate my alone time and embrace that feeling of loneliness. Recognizing that a similar feeling of loneliness once resinated in several aspects of my life and was one of the major catalysts that drove me to break the complacency of the desk job, focus of becoming a home owner, convenience of anticlimactic relationships, and comfort in the monotony of the suburban lifestyle. Noticing the similarity in the emotions and comparing the two states of "loneliness" was a very interesting process, concluding that the feeling of loneliness now is a much different feeling. The difference: loneliness is no longer emptiness and the sediments of feeling lost have dispersed. As I sat there, looking out at the white frosted mountains allowing whatever emotions that needed to surface, to surface, I was empowered by the breathtaking picture that good old mother nature had painted before me. Loosing myself in the beauty of the mountain, my thought process brought me back to the remember a book that I read several months back called Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken (see video below). Blessed Unrest outlines the miraculous movement of social change occurring throughout the world, and how it has come to be.
Long story short, it was the remembrance of this book that brought about the realization that no matter the intensity of the feeling of being alone, I am not. There are thousands of people involved in the social change movement that must have experienced at least a fragment of these indescribable feelings. Utilizing my alone time to make new self discoveries and the new year as a an excuse to make new commitments, I'm committing to embrace any feelings of discomfort that may emerge during this journey, to not let fear paralyze potential, and to allow the ambiguity of how this venture will unfold be held in hands much bigger than my own.
Es-Bee
