Forever a Journey

A path we walk can either be well-lit or need a latern.

I had such an enjoyable weekend!  Making friends is not left to just little kids.  My fiancé and I had invited a couple over who has a little boy not much younger than my soon-to-be stepson.  Kind of cool to say...stepson!  Anyways, we had a blast talking and laughing at our little boys interacting.  My cheeks thoroughly ached from all the fits of laughter I flew into.  Afterall, what is better than the sound of laughter?

I am so very glad I started this blog.  It is so renewing for me.  I get to explore the world as I see it, not restricted or censored in any manner.  My fiancé has told me he admires the way I write.  This past week, he commented that with the way I write, I should write a book.

"But I don't know what I would write about," I exclaimed.

"Write what you are writing now.  Make a collection and call it, 'Inspirations,'" he encouraged.

This made me think.  Dangerous thing, I know. What I have come to realize is this: I love writing.  I always have loved writing.  I use to write practice essays when home from school on made up topics.  I also use to make up my own math problems.  That is another issue entirely.

I meditated on this for a long time.  What would I write?  What did I have to say?  Would anyone want to read it?  I decided what I suppose a lot of writers ultimately decide.  If I am going to write anything, I should write something I would read or what I enjoy reading.  My whole purpose behind this blog is to communicate my experiences and what I have gone through.  To express myself and my point of view.  There has been two aspects in my life that have been crucial in building my point of view and my world: books and music.

How can I merge this with my writing?  Do they even merge?  I had thought about taking selected pieces of my blog out and elaborating on it.  Then it came to me.  I can present different pieces of music I love, different quotes from plays, movies, the Bible or poetry and connect it to a life experience to indulge upon.  I already began writing a list.  A lot of them come from my years in the Lenoir-Rhyne A Cappella Choir.

When I say "Forever a Journey," I do mean forever.  My journey with my fiancé who will become my husband in October.  My journey with my family, his family and, someday, our family.  My journey with my friends.  My journey with my career and my life choices, both those in the past, present and future.  Always remembering that what we do and have done does not define who we are.  It only helps make us who we can be.

A Calling, A Whisper and Snowflakes

Everyone do me a favor....go to your calendar and tell me what the date is.


April showers bring May flowers.

Go on, I will wait...

So, if your calendar reflects the same thing that my calendar does, it is currently the 5th of April, 2013.  Can you believe it that yesterday, the 4th of April, it snowed where I am?!?

I found it to be one of the craziest weather activities that I have witnessed in my young life.  Certainly, being where I am in the South, I am accustomed to it being hot and cold, back and forth, until it finally settles into Summer or Winter.  But I cannot ever recall seeing snow in April.

It was beautiful.  I was at work and whispers and murmurs began to sound throughout the building.  My back is to the window so I slowly turned to see what everyone was so entranced by.  Snow.  Big, white snow.  My coworker told me it was like clusters of flakes falling at one time.  It was like being in a snowglobe.

I often joke that Mother Nature needs to get out of menopause.  But at the same time, this is a miracle of our world.  Yesterday made me think of those persistent and courageous daffodils that peek up and begin to show the world they have survived winter.  I thought of how many of them would be harmed by the cold and the snow.  I use to think the same of the azaleas in the yard where I grew up.  Yet, they are so resilient.

We all encounter things in our lives that cause us to feel like we are moving backward.  I know I have.  I have put my life on hold for many different reasons only to wake up one day and realize I don't even know what my dreams are anymore.  This morning, after my fiancé left, I sent him a text message.  It read:

Please pray for me.  I am feeling lost and not fulfilled.  I know I shouldn't as I have you, my family and friends and a job.  I have everything that should make me happy.  But I still feel somewhat empty.

His reply:

I am always praying for you.  Every day.

Now you may say, "Eww, that's gross!"  But that is Love.  I realized last night, on my way home from work, what one of my coworkers told me.  We were talking about the study and practice of law and going on to higher education.  I told him that I never could because of the money.  He told me that if I am not careful, I will soon wake up and half my life would be over and I will not be where I feel like I should.

OK, I took a little artistic liberty with that.  I elaborate and wrote how what he said made me feel.  But those words really hit home.  I have stepped aside for so many things and people in my life that I have lost sight of what I want to make myself.  Is there any healing from that?

No, like the daffodils, there isn't healing.  But there is rebirth.  I have to be resilient like the daffodils and azaleas in the snow.  They have waited so long and couldn't wait any longer for Spring to be sure to set in.  But when the world started moving backward, they, too, retreated.  But that doesn't mean they won't appear again.  Just because I have been foolish in the past, setting my life and my dreams on hold for those around me, does not mean they won't come back to fruition.

The only remaining question is: what are my dreams?  What is my path?  I feel as though I am still fresh out of college and searching for my path in life.  How long will it take to discover it?  I have no inclination.  I do know I have a great support team in my fiancé and my family.  You, too, can be my support team.  Afterall, we have to stand by each other.

The other night, I had a thought that maybe at the end of a year, I might publish some of these posts and elaborate on them a little.  Any thoughts?  Comments, criticism or ideas?  I cannot become a better writer if I do not know how my writing is perceived.

UPDATE: I want to clarify that I am deeply in love with my fiance and thoroughly enjoy my job and what I am doing.  I simply feel like I have a calling for something more, be it volunteer work or going back to school.  I just don't want any misconceptions.