i wrote the post below one week ago, and meant to post it then but didn't have internet again until now.
i am home now, from the below mentioned travels, and i find myself even more in need of the mantra at the bottom of this post than i was this time a week ago.
two weeks of concentrated travels and time spent with people and new experiences was a lot for me. i loved and reveled in every second of it, but now, settling back home i'm experiencing one hell of a come-down and withdrawal in a weirdly backwards and unexpected way.
as someone who is used to and thrives in being alone more often than not, i've been disoriented by my lack of desire for it after this trip. however there's so much i have to process and understand from both New Orleans and Atlanta that i'm only able to do by myself. a lot of wonderful things happened while i was away, especially in the way of eye opening conversations with people. there were a LOT of those. perhaps my feeling of overwhelm with that aspect especially is due in part to me being such a words person, but i also think there was some heightened level of importance in many of the things discussed with both new and old friends these last few weeks. a sense of some sort of pivotal turning point that i just don't fully grasp or see yet.
i've felt very scattered and stressed and confused by my lack of being able to sort through all of that truth be told. especially amidst needing to get work done after being gone for so long.
not sure what the balance looks like, or what the solution is either, but trusting that there is enough time and space for me to figure it out.
this is somewhat counter to the things i normally share on here, but for some reason i felt the need to share it nonetheless.
perhaps this too is part of the processing.
March 19th, 2018
oh friends this week has been something else.
i've been on the road for a week now and i'm so in love with the natural beauty and raw humanity i've encountered in my travels so far.
this season of life has been such a unique one for me. unlike anything i've ever experienced before.
i've been living in a somewhat transcendental and almost even nomadic state these days in the sense that my regular routines, and being in a familiar place consistently, hasn't been all that much a part of my day to day over the last six months or so. in fact, consistency has been a foreign concept in a lot of ways for quite some time now.
however, because some level of consistency is a thing that is needed for my well being, i've had to find it in new and unexpected ways and in places i would't have noticed it before. which seems to be the theme of this season of my life: finding things in unexpected places.
so much of that is due to perspective, a topic on which i will have to go more in depth with at a later time, but in regards to an every-day way of being it's changed so much of my attitude and mentality in regards to my circumstances.
what you focus on becomes your reality, to a certain extent.
if i focus on the negativity and sadness of a place, whether it's emotional or physical, it's hard to really be able to look outside of that and recognize the good things amidst the bad.
to see the beauty that is potentially even more prominent than the ugliness, but that is just more subtle in it's way of speaking.
often you just have to quiet yourself enough to hear it, to see it, to feel it.
goodness, hadn't really intended to write all of that, i started this post with the intention of communicating a different thought but i suppose they're connected...
anyway, with all of that, this season of being on the road, on the go, and just on, has been an adjustment. i am more inclined to being a creature of solitude and calm spaces and slowness. that's where i most consistently try to place myself and what much of the past few years of my life have consisted of.
not to say that i don't thrive in environments of vibrancy and people and newness--i very much can, but the more consistent narrative of choice for me is the opposite.
however much of that has been turned upside down lately. i haven't been in the same place for more than a week since this past fall, and that was hard for me at first. it still is if i'm being honest. i was so used to being in my quiet, plant filled and artistically curated space. now Blue Moon and i have been driving all over the countryside and my home more often than not is a space other than my own.
i've had to learn how to make 'home' more of a state of mind rather than a physical place as well as finding the comfort of home in people and their spaces they share with me.
which is another idea i want to explore in writing later as well: what it is to make a home more so within myself than in a physical place. (what are your thoughts on that?)
but, all of that aside, i'm sitting here in a coffee shop in Atlanta and having such a wonderful conversation with the barista Kyala (something i thought perhaps i was at my capacity for after all of the intense and wonderful and deep conversations i've already had over this past week), and she said this thing that i really needed to hear. a mantra of sorts.
"i have enough time, i have enough space."
and sitting here, feeling all of the things, and reveling in this heightened state of awareness and experiencing more than i am used to in my day-to-day, and feeling on the verge of slipping behind with processing and understanding it all, i am going to hold onto that.