Becoming

i think i've officially been reinspired to blog on a semi-regular basis. i saw the film ''julie & julia" the other day. a true story about julie who blogs about her year devoted to making every one of julia child's recipes in her first book. julie collects thousands of readers which is not where my inspiration comes. i wouldn't want to be responsible for entertaining thousands of blog stalkers, but i do think julie's daily pondering and preparations did her a service, considering she was feeling pretty purposeless on the brink of turning 30 and ambitiously chose a seemingly simple yet lofty goal in the context of something she loves (julia child and food) in order to satisfy her longings to not feel so dull.

i am anything but dull. so i have no need to prove myself otherwise. but i do have desires. dreams. experiences that are changing me. and a community and family who give a damn. so i'm going to reach out to those through the medium of blog land.

sometimes i fear that i have changed so much that when i return home everyone will be disappointed that they don't know me any more. i think it's fair to make myself vulnerable to being understood and misunderstood. encouraged and discouraged.

so here i go, yo.

stepping out of highschool and into the college world was my first taste of freedom. i could press the start button and begin again. choose any image to take on. i must be honest when i reflect on my college experience... i felt a little lost. no consistent identity to confidently project as i did so bravely in high school. freedom was intimidating and sent me into a gray zone of identity experimentation. i remember leaving florida for nashville in my last year of college and thinking ''nashville is where it will happen. nashville is where i'll come alive. nashville is where it will all make sense.'' i used to think that in theory it was the weak people who often change their external environment hoping for an internal discovery. if only we could search deeply and honestly within ourselves. then we wouldn't need to leave our homes and go to a european l'abri in search of ''truth.'' well, my thoughts about that have changed. we are molded by our environment. more than we want to believe. what we eat. think. believe. love. consume. and where we choose to be is the environment in which we choose to be molded by.
so i am here in holland. for the first time since high school i am brave with my thoughts, not oppressed or ashamed by my natural opposition to my nurturing. it's not the certainty in anything but the uncertainty in everything which has brought me to this point. the difference is that i am fearless in this freedom now.

For now.

For now.

For now.

For now.


i'm curious how this courage with manifest itself when i return back to my florida nest in december. it's difficult to leave the place that hosted and fostered such self-discovery and into the predictable unknown.