truth and courage

~

A year ago, my life changed forever.  A year ago, I stepped on a plane with two suitcases and a backpack stuffed to capacity.  A year ago, I left for Greece, on what can only be described as the adventure of a lifetime. A year ago, my life changed for the better.

And today, I am acutely aware of the fact that I am not getting on a plane that will take me across the great wide blue into the great wide unknown. Instead, I am sitting in my room in the basement of my childhood home, trying to imagine myself on that plane again. My heart stretches, reaches, desperate to leap across the ocean. My mind tries to rationalize and remind of the decisions made in good conscience. My spirit encourages that my next steps will be, too, a grand adventure. My fingers labor across the keys, desperate even more than my heart to process this all.

My life will not be changing in the same way that it did exactly a year ago.

That being said, I am determined to make this again a day that I can look back on as a day that changed my life.  Because today is the day I am deciding that I am not through changing—I am not finished living.  Today I send these hopes and thoughts and intentions—on winged words…

Apart from putting out the hope that some major life changing phenomenon—or something even better—will happen, I intend to live out life changing and refining, mindfulness, and sense of the present. Every day. Wherever I am, and however it might look or not look at the time. So for now, that means gearing up for a new school year in a new school with a new batch of fresh-eyed fourth graders.  That means transitioning back into a new school setting and setting up the ins and outs of my own classroom (my first real solo classroom). Right now that means living in the moment, and making the most of the time that I have, while also looking forward to hope, set intentions. That means being an active participant in my life—inciting change, not just waiting for it to come and sweep me away.

And so now comes the catch. Because opening yourself up to and seeking change, by definition implies vulnerability. And the fear makes you want to duck your head and lick your wounds, as you sit complacent and deceivingly comfortable, but ultimately stagnant as life passes you by. But a life lived creatively, lived changingly, nay even just lived, involves choosing daily (sometimes hourly or even by the minute) to choose courage over fear.

Indeed, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness” (Brené Brown, Rising Strong).

I heard these words while on a run a few weeks ago: they came calling through the earbuds of the headphones connected to my phone playing Brené's audiobook. I hear them again as I sit here writing (as I sit here vulnerable and baring more and more of myself with each stroke of the key). They are the words I repeat to myself every time I think about possibilities. They are the words I cling to when I begin to hope and then start to hear the voice of fear niggling in my mind: “that’s too much of a long shot, I can’t really expect that anything so good could happen after Fulbright, I shouldn’t press my luck, shouldn’t ask for more.”…

But vulnerability means truth and courage. And that is the life that I want to live. So I type those words, these words. And I let those words of truth and encouragement ring in my head to drown out fear. And I type on. Winged words have come to rest in my head and give me space and safety to send these winged words to you. And Brené's truths that she shares are words that I would never have heard (she is an author I never would have read—her recommender a friend I never would have gotten to know, and what a shame that would be to not know), had I not travelled halfway round the world (one year ago) in pursuit of an opportunity that truly changed my life…

And so now, here I am, and again I tell you this is my intention. To live a life “being a verb” instead of “becoming a noun”, as the poet Mark Nepo posits. I am not a teacher or a writer or a former Fulbrighter or just a person. No. I am teaching, writing, reeling still in my adventures abroad last year, sharing old ones, inspiring other’s ones, and chasing new ones. Learning, loving, living, being, becoming, trying. I am here to tell you that these are the words I want to carry me into the next adventure of my life. Whatever that might be, however that might look, wherever that might lead.

Because when you travel abroad you will come back different. And if you don’t, then you did something wrong. I traveled to Greece and I am not the same as I was. I am better. But I recognize that I have much still to learn, more room to grow (so much more!). I want to learn, love, live.

At the risk of sounding cliché, I had to go halfway around the world to find myself. My year in Greece through the Fulbright program changed my life. I keep saying it was the adventure of a lifetime. It was. It truly was. But I’m only 23. I don’t want it to be the only adventure of my lifetime. I have a lot of years left to live, I hope, I pray. And moreover, hopefully many more adventures left, too.

It’s been 39 days since a plane brought me back from that adventure—and I still need more time to readjust. It has been 365 (well, technically 366 since it was a leap year) days since I left for that adventure. But I am here, and I am determined that my lifetime will hold more adventures. I am determined to make this again a day that changes my life. Scratch that: a day wherein I change my life.

~