Be Loved

Condition-Less Love

To me loving comes as naturally as exhaling. I share love when possible, show affection when needed, give gifts when appreciated, and extend hugs whenever necessary. In contrary it is accepting the same love that seems to comes for me with very little ease or natural tendencies. Similar to a kind compliment, I have become a master of dodging love like a targeted bullet. This is not a metal I am proud to wear. Somewhere along the way I have come to believe that the presence of love always guarantees a set of conditions, most likely because in the past it typically has. Regardless, this is a lie. A lie that up until now has kept my heart saturated in the belief that when I receive love from another I must also receive with that a hidden agenda. One filled with pay backs, collateral and a play book of their rules to encompass the love they are choosing to extend to me.

Like I said, that’s a lie. The truth is love should always be unconditional. Love looks not at flaws, issues, personality type or temperaments as anything more the entertainment for the journey and the flavour to an otherwise bland existence. Unconditional love gives room for darkness, imperfections and character flaws, knowing them as simply the-not-so silver lining to the truth. In accepting this condition-less love I am offering the genuineness of who I really am to anyone willing to share. It is only here that my unique heart can happily exist, where without effort unconditional love eliminates all judgement, preconceived notions and demands for change. This, like most things, is easier said than done. But like all things, not impossible. As I enter the next phase of my life, clear out the old and make room for the new, I know that the only kind of love for which I will choose to create space, is the rare kind that comes unconditional.

Be One of a Kind

Silently Inspired

I love art galleries. I am not an art critic by any means and cannot claim to know more than the average person with seeing eyes. Nonetheless I choose not to let that down play the way that art makes me feel, and its ability to both inspire and enthral me. My source of passion derives from an artist’s ability to convey an entire feeling captured in one clear moment in time. For someone who relies mostly on words and my ability to verbally articulate my feelings, I find myself completely engrossed by the idea of sharing with the world your views in utter silence. How could I ever manage to fit an entire feeling, story or belief within a snap shot, on a canvas or carved into a sculpture, hence my fascination.

Regardless I allow for this feeling, I make room for this moment of clarity though the expression of someone else and in doing so I offer myself the space to be changed. In the past I have searched for such types of inspiration, now I am reminded that to be inspired I need only one thing, room. Inspiration is the space where what I don’t already know finds the opportunity to meet with what I do know, a moulding of past experiences with present life, creating an entirely new concept that once again can become my own. Therefore my job is not to seek, because it is everywhere, the person in front of me on the subway, graffiti on a park bench or the lines of an old building all serve to inspire. My job is simply creating the space for the new, making a small area within myself that allows the things that may fear me, change me, shock me and soon enough embody me to come together and unite with the things that have already passed though that very course. It is this belief that leaves me standing in an art gallery in front of a beautiful piece of work, contiously making openness my single effort to be inspired.

Be Present

Photos By Jaime Ibarra

Pursuing Happiness

In the past I have often mistaken happiness for ease. When in truth they are very different. I believe it is easy to be unhappy if I choose; happiness on the other hand must be pursued. I must consciously choose to have happiness present in my life, I have to muster up the courage to walk away, reconstruct, and reconfigure myself into that very happiness. This is not a onetime act, this is a constant evolving road with many stop offs and very few visible signs. Most of the time I have ended up following in someone else’s footsteps in hopes that they are on the right track to happiness and I can somehow just hitch a ride. The remarkable part about happiness is that it rarely looks the same for two people. Not to say it never does, because it is those few people who happen to share the same definition that I choose to hold close, knowing they are in fact my company to share that with.

For the most part however my definition of happiness is just that, mine. So this road has been most successfully taken on my own, lined with my personal goals and desires in mind. Once I was able to conjure up a visual, a feeling or a word for that happiness, I was able to turn an abstract hope into some tangible concept to chase after. It is this pursuit that reminds me I am alive, that reminds me I woke up today to achieve something more than paying this month’s rent, finding the perfect pair of fall boots or surviving another work week. It reminds me of my big picture, the one that I want to spend a lifetime sitting back and looking at with the contentment of an accomplished artist knowing despite its perceived imperfections it is simply both perfect and mine.

Be Open

Global Lesson

I have spent a lot of my life thinking about the things I one day want. I have spent very little time placing the things I want today into my hands. Until now, now I understand that what I do not acquire today I cannot fairly ask to possess tomorrow. Tomorrow is simply a direct result of today. Did I love enough today, show enough pride, fight enough fears or be true enough to myself in order to merit any of those tomorrow? I can create myself one day at a time. However I cannot expect to be courageous tomorrow if I cower today. So today I choose courage. Today I will be sure to hold my head high, be fearless and be aware. In hope that tonight I can go to sleep knowing that I will be that much closer to finding my inner courage in the morning. I have come to understand that the first steps in becoming are found within my ability to make myself, and therefore the world believe.

That being said, today I aim to make the world believe I am a writer, that I am talented, and that I am no longer afraid. Today I am ready to be heard. So I ask you out there in Bloggerland reading this for whatever your reason may be, what lesson would you like to teach the world about yourself today? I promise you that someone somewhere is listening to you too.

Photos By Joseph Szymanski

Working Progress

This particular entry is titled working progress because that is exactly what it has been, spending the past month sitting on my desktop in a constant stage of editing. I have not posted it until now because I never felt like it was quite done, what I realized is that this particular piece of writing will never fully be done. Which happens to be the entire point, for me this part of my life will continue to remain just that, a working progress.

I feel empowered when I consider the title of my blog, A Time to Soar. I want to share with you what those few simple words strung together truly mean to me. I have repeatedly heard myself use the analogy to either sink or swim. Most likely because that is exactly how the past few years of my life have felt, drastically fighting against the grain of who I am and who I wish to be, reminding myself that I can either chose to sink or to swim. I kept choosing to swim, to move my body just enough, inhale when needed and push a little harder in order to somehow manage to keep afloat. As time past my body grew tired of simply staying alive, surviving quietly under the radar, wadding in an ocean of fear and self doubt, resulting in my search for more. I wanted to succeed, and within my success to be able to consider myself both brave and strong. This for me is what comes after swimming, this for me is that point in my life when I decided it was finally time to lift out of the water and to allow myself to sore. So with a new set of wings I am entering my world fully immersed, responsible for my actions, no longer afraid of what others may think, leaving it all on the table and hopefully being able to inspire a few others along the way.

Be Yourself

Loosening the Grip

For me change is most often found saturated in fear, even though I am clearly aware of its inevitability. Yet somehow it still manages to frighten me and leave me dead in my tracks. What is the root of this fear? It is as though I am afraid the leaves will not one day turn back green after they have dried up and fallen to the ground. Fearful that I will somehow forget what they looked like or how they smelled, and while I live in this fear of change I meanwhile forget to see the snow, the white blanket over the world, the smell of purity and the brisk air on my skin. I forget right up until the time in which it begins to melt away, then find myself both longing for what has been and afraid of what might come.

A friend once told me that you never truly step backwards, because even when you are stepping backwards you are still stepping forward. He was right. Therefore change is always a step forward. No matter how it’s outer layers may look it is always stepping into the new season, whether is a season of cold, of hot, of new growth or of necessary death it always comes in the right order, just where it belongs. Making change not only anticipated but also well received. I am learning to hold tightly onto this concept, and loosen my grip on what has been. Through this I know change is in fact the only sign that enough time has passed and that I am now finally ready to know, be or awaken something new.