is it over yet?

So I went ziplining over the weekend.  Super fun.  You should really try it if you haven't.  It's incredible.  And it's not just an incredible experience in and of itself, but it is also incredible how much the experience reflects the way I feel about life right now.  It's exciting, there is so much opportunity, so much to experience... if you can just get past that first leap and all the hype surrounding it.  For the rest of the post feel free to exchange "ziplining" for "life."

Ziplining was so exciting in theory, I loved talking about it, the idea was thrilling, and I was going to go enjoy this great time with a great group of people; what is an experience really if it is not enjoyed amongst friends?  But actually doing it was more scary than exciting.  You take all the appropriate safety measures, strap in, follow the advice of experts, but there is still no sure fire way of making sure you are going to get through it in once piece.  You literally have to stare down the mountain, watching the thin lines that are supposedly getting you across disappear to a spec on the other side.  You can see where you are going, know the way to get there, but you never know if you are going to make it.

Your scared, your unsure, but with the support of friends you close your eyes and jump of the edge.  And if you're like me, you keep your eyes closed and don't even have enough breath to scream because you haven't been breathing.  So worried about the outcome, you are barely enjoying the journey.  But you get there, you might need to ne straddled by a man- who will at least make you dinner later that night (turns out we were in such a small town that the zipline tour guide was also the chef at the restaurant we went to later that night)- and rescued the last little bit.  But you will get there.

So with my feet firmly planted on the ground, I had a whole new respect for the journey I had just gone on, and a little more confidence in it.  So round 2, I was able to jump on my very own.  By round 3, I was breathing.  And by round 4, I was smiling.  And finally by the last round I was enjoying it.  The only problem was, by the time i started actually having fun, it was almost over.  And although I can go ziplining again, and know how to enjoy it from the beginning, I do not have the same leisure with life.  If I wait until I am sure I am going to be ok to start enjoying life, I am going to be waiting forever.  And who wants to look back and say that they lived in fear and never truly got to enjoy it.

It is time to stop asking if it is over yet and start enjoying this journey for what it is.  Life is more than just hoping you get to your next destination; we have to get there, and we are going to, so why not enjoy what we can along the way?  Unlike ziplining, we can't do life again so just breathe, enjoy it for what it is, and always appreciated your feet being on solid ground.

life: it's just notthat pretty.

I was driving home today and it hit me.  What?  Nothing.  As I was driving from my childhood home to my apartment (which will soon no longer be), I got swept up in this big feeling of nothingness- I was washed with the realization that I was empty.  How could this be?  I have been working for a year to be anything but empty.  I thought I was finally at a point where I was the only one who can build me up or tear me down.  Isn't that what all this hard work was for?  So that I could be the master of my environment and not the other way around?

And beyond that, even if I wasn't as on top of my game as I thought, what in my environment was even making me feel this way?   I have everything I need, maybe not everything I want, but who does?  My environment would be more than pleasing from most people.  But for some reason I was blindsided with this desolate nothingness.  

I think I need to find that one thing that makes everything else all fall together.  As freeing as it is to be in your early 20s with nothing holding you down but your own will.  But really it's terrifying.  There is no direction, barely a suggestion of where to go.  Everything is so far up in the air that you barely think it's going to fall down, let alone where it may or may not fall.  So hard to make forward progress when you can barely see what lies ahead.  I am starving for that one thing that gives me the direction I'm lacking.  but in order to get that one thing I know I am going to have to take a risk.  

Taking a risk is never easy- the definition of risk is going in blind and hoping for the best out come while knowing that failure is a high possibility.  It's scary, but in order to have a starting point fore the rest of my life, it is that time.  As Britney Spears says, "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman" (yes I am quoting Britney, do not judge me)- I have to take that risk as a girl with nothing in the word holding me back and keep the responsible woman in me at bay with the confidence that I am doing this for her, so she can figure out what is to come.  Time to take the deep breath and jump into the unknown- its the only way forward.