This letter to my first time adventurers kicks off a two part blog segment on ‘change’ that will feature a piece on intentional journaling and an anecdote.
Dear Reader,
Whether you are leaving home for the first time in search of self, a new experience, or because your life is demanding it of you, congratulations on your upcoming adventure.
I don’t know your story or what is sweeping you away. I know not what single moment, or series of moments happened that led you to leave; whether drawn to adventure or in pursuit of love, a soul search for purpose, or if you just found a way like many of us do to break your own heart and are seeking a way to put it back together again.
Regardless of your reason, what a beautiful thing to recognize this empty part of your heart, and pursue a new experience in its honor.
As a person who left home a few years ago, and is continuing my adventure around the country and hasn’t looked back since, I have a few words of wisdom I wish someone had shared with me.
It is okay to be afraid. End of point.
Go with the mentality to be completely open. Be open to new experiences, open to people and ideas and stories, open to ways of life you may not agree with, open to need and open to the wide range of your feelings. You never know what your spirit will have the opportunity to accumulate. You lose so much be being closed off to new experiences.
Love others. Love the strangers, love the fuck-ups, love the ones who seem to deserve it, and even the ones that seem not to. This is very simple. I woke up one day on this adventure of mine, and took one day to love without doubts. I wanted to see what kind of power that had. I loved others without inhibition, reservation, judgement, or fear, and it was transformative. Not only was that kind of love good, but in loving others like that, I learned to love myself the same way, without creating ultimatums for myself and without making my self love subservient to the love I gave to others.
Be prepared to meet yourself on the other side. When I left home for the current adventure I am on, I knew that I wouldn’t, and couldn’t continue to be the same…and if I ever returned, I would come back a different person. I didn’t know who I was going to become but I was excited to meet her. The ways in which I expected to change, I didn’t. I grew and changed in the most unexpected ways. I thought my adventure would make me harder, but instead I became softer. I thought I would learn to tread more delicately, but on the contrary my mind and mouth and sense of fearlessness became bolder. I learned that what I thought were my weaknesses were actually my strengths. When I left I had no idea what I would see or how I would feel or who I would become or how I would be stretched in love, but I did change, in an irreversible way. I became fierce.
Remember most importantly, that it is okay to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time. It is okay to experience a full range of emotions, and to feel deeply when you encounter something that your spirit responds to.
Congratulations on your upcoming adventure, and good luck in your pursuit of self. May you find the inner strength to discover the world, to love it as it is, to challenge it and to feel it fully, to find what it is you are looking for, and most importantly, the courage to claim it when you find it. I can’t wait to meet you on the other side.
Love and light,
Taylor Patrice
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