
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. Even more so than usual. To begin with, I had no idea what I was thinking about - just random thoughts, swirling round my head, trying to get my attention. Gradually, they began to settle and make more sense, and I started to actively think about them.
The way I feel right now, is something that has been building in me for a very long time. Anyone who has known me for any length of time, or who followed my previous blogs, will know that there have been times in the last couple of years when I have reached a turning point, had a revelation or discovered something profound about myself and my life. They will also know that none of these positive changes have lasted. They always have a good effect on my life, but the full force seems to fade away in far to short a time, drowned in the sea of my life.
I am quietly confident that this time is going to be different. I have been taking apart all the things I have learnt since I started on this path - because I have realised that it has all been one path, leading to this point in my life; not a series of different paths that I jumped between, never settling, as I used to think. I have been asking myself some fundamental questions about who ‘I’ am. What is it that i actually want from life? How much of the person I am now is actually real and how much is made up of other people’s perceptions? Which of the things I believe about myself are actually true and which are just ingrained habits from a lifetime of trying to fit in?
I don’t have all the answers yet, far from it, and I expect I never will. However, at least now I know the questions and I am making every effort to live my life in a more aware state - aware of myself, of my thoughts, of my opinions, of the people I come into contact with and of the world around me. It’s like awakening after a very long sleep, when everything seems slightly different to how you remember it.
I am challenging my own view of myself as well as the view the rest of the world has. Is it too late to do this? Am I too old? Too set in my ways? Too nervous, timid, shy? To full of self doubt? Who knows? I certainly don’t - but I am going to try to find out.
I have started to pull together ideas, plans, just in my head mostly for now, about things I wish to do - soon, in the future, and heaven only knows when! Plans to create and to learn; to improve and to grow; to simplify and to appreciate; to travel and to explore; to love and to laugh; to sing and to dance - to truly rejoice in the wonderful fact of being ME!
I can actually say, right here, right now, that for the first time in a very long while, I really do like myself. I may be a way off of loving myself - but I know I am getting there
I have no idea if any of this makes sense to anyone else or whether it just comes across as the ramblings of a crazy woman. It doesn’t really matter. This is me. These are my thoughts. This is my life. Hello world - I am finally ready to begin