Oh my sweet little journal, highest greetings upon you! I know usually I go rambling off into outer space in poetry format, but today my thoughts are a little more toggled up than poetry could sort out.
Lately I've felt very grandly like I don't have much control, or even much knowledge about the way my life is turning and changing. So many different areas growing and shifting! The girl that I used to be is still there, but she's becoming more and more every day, moving through time and space so quickly and discovering so very much indeed. I've become more aware of the vastness of life, even of simply the Earth. Everything is much larger, much fuller and richer than I could ever have imagined. The other day dearest Celly showed me a map of the Milky Way from way, way out in deep space and I was blown away by the sheer magnitude of it all. Countless, endless swaths of stars and in only our one tiny galaxy, which harbors our one tiny, planet.
Everything seems suddenly so fragile! I'm at a rather tenuous and trembling sort of age, the kind where I could feasibly be doing practically anything I would like. Ah, but what would I like best to do? That's where always I get impossibly stumped! School sounds magnificent, but so does traveling, and so does staying in my beloved Putney and carving out my own little niche here from the ground up. All things sound marvelous and terrifying. All of a sudden things that were vastly important have become minor details, and the things that I've been ignoring or hiding from for lots of time are suddenly out clear on the table and asking for my attention.
What to do, what to do? Who to be? All things are possible, every path holding goodness and challenge alike. There are so many things I could try, so many places I could go. All that life requires of me is that I go out into it. Maybe it isn't necessary to understand or even to anticipate the future, but to just go forward with a grin and a will to be transformed and to appreciate every passing moment.
Some things are certain. I love my beautiful, large family which is made of the most wonderful people a person could imagine. It's all very complex and complicated, and it doesn't follow tradition or even a sense of order, but it's a family all the same. No matter what I do, I have them all, and they have me. Some things change. All that pining that I felt very keenly for people I felt I had lost, has dissipated.
The other night I realized gently, that I didn't want to go back to who I was three or four years ago. As little as I think of myself, I'm so deeply happy to be where I am. To be this girl who feels sort of messy and at times awkward, but who is truly me.
I like being this Lulu, this girl I knew I was harboring and was nervous to let out. I don't know if I'll ever be successful in financial terms, or if I'll do all of the things I'd like very much to, but I know that I will be very happy no matter what I choose. I know that I'll grow very much more no matter where I go to do it. I'll always be too fond of chocolates and cameras and I'll love sunshine, trees, fields and art. I'll always write, always take photographs, always longboard and bicycle and play games. The big green and blue world will always be here for me and I'll always love it more and more. No matter what comes up next, I know many things for certain, but especially I just know that everything is going to be great.
I have no doubts that I'll be challenged even more thoroughly than I have been before. But then there's that delicious dream of mine, where the fire burns as I go through it but it leaves me strong and whole and unharmed. I think that I can rise to this occasion, this lovely life occasion. I never follow rules very goodly, and I tend to do all sorts of odd, unpredictable, quirky things. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing. But I have such a good time! Such a good time dancing, running, playing, exploring, relaxing, thinking, just being here.
It's such an incomprehensible gift... just to be here. To have been not only thought of, but then crafted and brought to life. I feel deeply honored. To be here, to be Lulu. I feel certain that no matter what happens next, I'm never in any real danger. The worst thing that a human feels can happen, is to be removed from the action. But I've never been nervous of death because I don't believe in it. I believe in changes and growing, of finding yourself in a place you never imagined. Of going home after a long day playing in the countryside.
It doesn't matter what I play at while I'm here. I could become a vast number of things, all of them exciting. I could stay at my beloved Co-Op and have a great time! I could be a photographer, a journalist, a farmer, a poet or children's book author. I could work in a great environment like a library or Co-Op or even just a lovely store!
All that matters is that I greet whatever comes my way with courage and an open heart. I used to be profoundly afraid of life, and I wanted to hide out from it and remain secure. But I like this new dangerous way, where in the blink of an eye the world just blooms and blooms right before my eyes and I'm a part of it. I have all of my amazing, affectionate, endlessly beloved friends and my unconventional but indispensable family. I have Heaven trailing around after me, wherever my feet head off to next. Nothing is ever lost, nothing. It all just adds, and adds, and adds, forever. Life is star nurseries and springtime and big, open ocean. In the end of it all, school, work, home isn't quite as important as the little things that happened along the way, seemingly in the shadow of the big.
It's greatly comforting to understand that there will always be daffodils, peanut butter, carousels and days at the beach. I'll always have everyones hand to hold, always have my endlessly beloved Ellie there just waiting at the gate for me at the end of a long and beautiful Day. Life maybe isn't about how you earn silly bits of paper. It's maybe just about all of these glorious, small things that I love so very much. It's just really about joining the story, taking breaths and reaching out. And there's a bazillion ways to do incredible things. Sometimes a degree helps, sometimes just smiling at someone who's having a rough day helps even more. Sometimes money helps you do cool things and sometimes it's coolest just to lay in the grass and watch the clouds and talk to someone about ships and sails and sealing wax, cabbages and kings.
Just being here is good enough for me. Everything else is details, and they're important, good ones. They need careful consideration and attention. But they also need a flexible, happy, gentle mind. Worrying about the future like I do just clouds everything so that I feel lost and helpless. I'd like to just go out and greet everything that comes my way. So I shall!
Ah, to live dangerously! To sing badly and loudly, to do handstands and eat too many sweets! To live here just this once, and to live it very well, until the next adventure welcomes us in. That's all I want. And now that I know, I'll just go for it! Look sharp my lovely world, here I come! :D
