"You were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all."
I'm sure I've used this line before. It's one that just sticks in my head on a regular basis, and it is especially poignant for me tonight. But I think this line applies more to myself than anyone else I've ever met.
I called some old, dear friends tonight after hearing about an important announcement in their lives. We chatted for about twenty minutes, catching up on the more pressing changes since I last saw them five years ago. We ended the call with "much love" and a promise from me to visit the next time I am in town so we can do a proper update.
Part of our discussion was my divorce two years ago and my subsequent traveling and language acquisition. She remarked that I have always loved people and their stories and my complete fascination with other cultures. (Was it always that obvious?)
A little while later, I was talking with another friend who laughed at one of my stories and said, "What I love about you is that you are so different from everyone else...and you own it. You're not afraid to be different." It seems that I'm finally growing into my own skin. The seeds have always been there, but I managed to marry a man who was unable to appreciate this very prominent part of my psyche.
In another conversation I had this weekend, I told one of my favorite people on the planet that he is a gypsy...and I am, too. Perhaps that is the reason we are still friends nearly two years after we met and now live on different continents.
All this goes back to the poem I posted earlier in the week the reflects a conversation I had with my grandmother. My question was why the definition of success has to be a black and white, carved in stone duplication of what someone else has deemed successful. "What if the journey was never meant to be horizontal...and parallel to the lives walking this piece of universe?"
My own road is not straight. It's not perfect. It's very often morally opposed to what I was taught to be a black and white code with no deviations. As I look around me, I'm starting to accept that my own path may never measure up to what others consider successful. It may never be filled with a stable partner and children and our own house in which we do yard work on Saturday mornings after a pancake breakfast.
It may very well be that fifty years from now, I will look at my collection of memories and the people and places that fill them...and smile. My own contribution to the poetry of humanity may be that I existed in a world of rules and regulations that so often collides with my own itches and yearnings. That I was unafraid to explore and push to the extreme all the feelings and wonderings that sometimes literally burn within me.
And you know what? It's all okay. I've puked at a carnival in front of a former pirate. I've crawled across the stones of Machu Picchu and stared at the stars under a dark Andean sky. I've stared into the Mediterranean and texted promises with a South American who always seemed to make me smile. I've explored Florida with a Spaniard who is as crazy in love with life as me. I've sat up in the wee hours of the night sharing stories in Spanish and Portuguese. I've eaten dinner with strangers from all over the globe. I've shared a bed with a Brasilian family. I've wandered the streets of Cancun and debated American politics with Mexican bartenders. I've played soccer with a Brasilian boy. I've performed my poetry under a birdcage constructed of palm fronds. I've swam in the moonlit Gulf with one of my favorite poets wearing nothing but our underwear. I found my heart home on the Gothic streets and tree lined parks of Barcelona. I've painted with salt water laced water colors along the beach. I've laughed with my crazy friends as we imagine gypsy lives on the shores of Brasil and make up silly games like "paper Moses" while others watch us with wonder (and a little fear).
Sigh.
It's so been worth all the tears and smiles and heartbreak. This knowledge of myself empowers me. Few people will ever understand it, and that's okay. Now I'm off to become the next great American writer. (Or, as some of my dear friends have told me, I'm off to prove to the world that I already wear that title.)
I'm glad to know me. I'm glad to see this truth of myself. Tonight I will lay beside myself in my bed and rest in the knowledge that I am.
I'm sure I've used this line before. It's one that just sticks in my head on a regular basis, and it is especially poignant for me tonight. But I think this line applies more to myself than anyone else I've ever met.
I called some old, dear friends tonight after hearing about an important announcement in their lives. We chatted for about twenty minutes, catching up on the more pressing changes since I last saw them five years ago. We ended the call with "much love" and a promise from me to visit the next time I am in town so we can do a proper update.
Part of our discussion was my divorce two years ago and my subsequent traveling and language acquisition. She remarked that I have always loved people and their stories and my complete fascination with other cultures. (Was it always that obvious?)
A little while later, I was talking with another friend who laughed at one of my stories and said, "What I love about you is that you are so different from everyone else...and you own it. You're not afraid to be different." It seems that I'm finally growing into my own skin. The seeds have always been there, but I managed to marry a man who was unable to appreciate this very prominent part of my psyche.
In another conversation I had this weekend, I told one of my favorite people on the planet that he is a gypsy...and I am, too. Perhaps that is the reason we are still friends nearly two years after we met and now live on different continents.
All this goes back to the poem I posted earlier in the week the reflects a conversation I had with my grandmother. My question was why the definition of success has to be a black and white, carved in stone duplication of what someone else has deemed successful. "What if the journey was never meant to be horizontal...and parallel to the lives walking this piece of universe?"
My own road is not straight. It's not perfect. It's very often morally opposed to what I was taught to be a black and white code with no deviations. As I look around me, I'm starting to accept that my own path may never measure up to what others consider successful. It may never be filled with a stable partner and children and our own house in which we do yard work on Saturday mornings after a pancake breakfast.
It may very well be that fifty years from now, I will look at my collection of memories and the people and places that fill them...and smile. My own contribution to the poetry of humanity may be that I existed in a world of rules and regulations that so often collides with my own itches and yearnings. That I was unafraid to explore and push to the extreme all the feelings and wonderings that sometimes literally burn within me.
And you know what? It's all okay. I've puked at a carnival in front of a former pirate. I've crawled across the stones of Machu Picchu and stared at the stars under a dark Andean sky. I've stared into the Mediterranean and texted promises with a South American who always seemed to make me smile. I've explored Florida with a Spaniard who is as crazy in love with life as me. I've sat up in the wee hours of the night sharing stories in Spanish and Portuguese. I've eaten dinner with strangers from all over the globe. I've shared a bed with a Brasilian family. I've wandered the streets of Cancun and debated American politics with Mexican bartenders. I've played soccer with a Brasilian boy. I've performed my poetry under a birdcage constructed of palm fronds. I've swam in the moonlit Gulf with one of my favorite poets wearing nothing but our underwear. I found my heart home on the Gothic streets and tree lined parks of Barcelona. I've painted with salt water laced water colors along the beach. I've laughed with my crazy friends as we imagine gypsy lives on the shores of Brasil and make up silly games like "paper Moses" while others watch us with wonder (and a little fear).
Sigh.
It's so been worth all the tears and smiles and heartbreak. This knowledge of myself empowers me. Few people will ever understand it, and that's okay. Now I'm off to become the next great American writer. (Or, as some of my dear friends have told me, I'm off to prove to the world that I already wear that title.)
I'm glad to know me. I'm glad to see this truth of myself. Tonight I will lay beside myself in my bed and rest in the knowledge that I am.
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