finding myself

born again.

strength and love almost seem to be the most two juxtaposed words to ever catapult themselves together in the english language. how do i know? because those are the only two words to ever matter to me, and yet they are the two words to ever cause me so much grief and anguish. while it’s true that my reputation for kindness generally precedes me, while it’s true that my heart is probably the biggest part about me (even bigger, unfortunately, than my capacity for logic and rational thought), this is not the heart that i seek.

for years i have sought to expand my heart to one which would be big enough to love and give back to the entire world, rather than to lovers who would cast me out due to their own demons, causing me to believe that my heart was a defect rather than a benefit. and so, i must embark at some point … into a life uncomfortable, a life less lived, a life far less desired. for nearly the past decade, i have promised myself that i would eventually leave the country to love a people and a culture less refined than my own. and yet, i have perpetually found myself at the mercy of my foolish heart: the heart of a girl constantly seeking to save, to baptize some lover in the absolution of unabashed love and devotion, only to constantly be betrayed, hurt, and/or disappointed.

but too much time has passed, too little time is left to continue my role in this cycle. as anais nin so eloquently wrote,

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage; It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before, to test your limits, to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

And so, this dream has been reborne, reawakened, in the hopes that i will finally blossom on my own.