New Chapter

The world's a roller-coaster
And I am not strapped in
Maybe I should hold with care
But my hands are busy in the air

 

It's been so long since I've blogged, I hope I still  remember how to write one!  Here goes nothing...

Tonight I was reminded while talking to an old friend about how I used to write these things all the time and that I don't anymore.  I kind of miss it.  It's a whole new year which means a whole new beginning so I thought it'd be appropriate to start a new blog, rather than hopelessly trying to muster up the username to old accounts, which, let's be honest, is a lost cause anyway.  I can't remember what I ate for lunch, let alone passwords my lugubrious, despondent, emotionally unstable15-year old self concocted...

Tonight I find myself feeling indifferent to the past.  While unchangeable, it has also shaped me into the person I am today.  Filled with pain, sorrow, joy, laughter, hurt, happiness, love and loss, I don't regret a single thing.  My past has made me who I am.  Friendships have been lost, fights have been fought, my heart has been broken, and the pieces put back together.  A lot has changed, and so have I.

It's hard to believe that one year ago today I left on a plane to study abroad in a foreign country.  I remember sitting on my bed, with snow falling outside, packing my suitcase and crying as I said goodbye to the safety nets and security of my friends and family here as I set off for Spain, a place that at the time, seemed completely foreign to me.  I think back to March as I was leaving my host family, sitting on my bed in Salamanca and my host mom knocking on the door to give me the biggest hug, telling me how much of a pleasure it was to have me and how she couldn't believe the time had passed so quickly.  It was then that I realized-- this place that at once had seemed so foreign and strange now seemed so strange to leave, because there too, I would once again, be leaving the comfort zones and safety nets of a place that became home and people who became family.  A chapter in my life ending, just in time for another to begin...

And such is life, I suppose.  A series of chapters each with their own beginnings and endings, each one comprising the bigger novel that is our life.  And each novel, so strangely and wonderfully weaved, intertwinning and overlapping.  The colors of my life bleeding onto the pages of yours.  Your words seeping onto my pages, too.  We color each others lives streaming shades of purple, cyan, and amber and gray.  We do not know how or why some people come and stay and others come and go but it is always like that.

Just like study abroad, in life we are challenged to say goodbye and part from familiarity and comfort zones, to end chapters and to begin new ones.  We do so scared and unknowing, afraid of the things that will come from it or the things that we'll find.  To say goodbye and abandon the security of the past in exchange for an uncertain future is not always easy but it is necessary.  Despite the hurt and fear and worry it may cause us, the risk is essential: to leave old things behind so that new and better ones may, splendidly and forever, transfigure the chapters of our lives.


Here's to new beginnings, the changes it will bring, and the courage to embrace the opportunity!
Happy 2011, everyone! :)

 

I lay my head onto the sand
The sky resembles a back-lit canopy with holes punched in it
I'm counting UFO's, I signal them with my lighter
And in this moment I am happy

Happy.