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Unlost in Translation

Monthly Archives: November 2014

He let me go, without saying goodbye, because he loved me.

29 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by mjthecreator in Uncategorized

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endings, letting go, life, love

Because he wanted me to be happy in the life I’d chosen and not the road not taken, because he loved me enough to let me go.

and he has the right to go be happy and live his life too, so I will let him go.

The fulfillment of love is not a happy ending, or even crossing an ocean to be with someone.

The fulfillment of love is letting someone be their truest self.

Whatever sacrifice that may entail, even if you may never be together.

He didn’t let me go because he didn’t care, he let me go because he couldn’t take care of me the way I deserve to be taken care of.

I don’t know for a fact that any of this is true.

But I love him enough to let him go, if that’s what he wants.

Maybe we’ll meet again someday, maybe we won’t.

and that’s all there is to say about that.

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On Melancholy, and Why I’m In France

29 Saturday Nov 2014

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America, expatriate, france, grief, homesick, life, living, love, melancholy, missing family, Paris, philosophy, sadness

All things end.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful.

Why did I get out of bed this morning, why do I eat, if I’m only going to die?

Why am I in France, if I never thought I would stay?

And why, of all places, France?

It can seem strange for a young, ambitious girl from the world’s economic and military superpower to come to a civilization that has long since reached its peak.  Although, for Europeans, it will make total and complete sense, because in many ways, the “living,” is better here, and America, for all its power, is far from number one in the things that matter. Not just vacation time, but also offering a basic quality of life, and free healthcare, to all its citizens among them.

Not to mention the food is better, and purer.

Why am I here, trying to build a life- make friends, have a career, maybe even meet somebody- if I’m not even sure I want to stay?

To try it, for one. Expatriation is a wonderful thought experiment that takes you out of your own head.  Comparative political economy is a way of life, and I’m trying to make my life’s story the best tall tale with world literature influences.

It could be a story of roots and wings. I know where the roots are, more now than ever before- though you can never go back and be as you started. But the wings, you can never be sure of where they will take you. I have a feeling I want to go back to the beginning, but it depends on which beginning. And I’m still challenging myself to find out why I feel that way now, after the dream of a lifetime of moving to France has come true. Although it was never the initial game plan, which is part of the point.

Were there things I wanted to escape- yes. Quite literally, my own self. The huge pressure and expectations I put on everything. Come to find out, I seem to have brought them with me here, and they don’t fit any better.

But o, there were things I was running toward. Freedom, experimentation, adventure, the culture that created eclairs and existentialism, the capital of a once great empire and still vibrant Francophone culture. And yes, I was running towards myself as well. Towards life and experience, rather than mere achievement.

But I’ve found it takes both to make a world.

And that many tears are required to understand the value of a smile. And loneliness to appreciate friendship.

I’m at an indeterminate point in my life where I could continue to just play without too much thought of consequences, if I’m willing to let all my expectations go. And there’s still plenty of time for career, marriage, kids. And unwittingly, travel has been incredible for my career and figuring out what my strengths are and how to share them with others.

I could also start being, if not normal, at least slightly more conventional, at least for a time. I could go to the dentist and speak my native tongue, go to a bar and meet someone whose clothes and hand gestures and dry humor I can decode with no effort at all. I could use the savings from lower taxes to save up money and pay off debt, another kind of freedom. And I could live without a visa, and see my family more than once every nine months or so.

I’m about to go home for Christmas, and I’m very, very excited. It wasn’t till it hit me on Thanksgiving I hadn’t seen my family for eight months. Usually, all the time, people ask how long I’ve been in Paris, and I say eight months. I guess I try not to think of it from that other angle, and it’s not till my friend started posting Christmas music on Facebook that I realize how much I try not to think too much of home.

This visit could be, and probably will be, the make or break point for whether I stay in France. I may well get a job offer, or could use the time I have now here to look for a more permanent job.

I come up with all kinds of excuses for why I should leave- taxes, salary, family, finding a partner, making friends. And the truth is they are all bullshit. If I have the choice to stay- if I make the choie that I want to say, and hustle, and by the grace of God find a job- I am quite certain I can have most everything I want (except lower taxs, and quite possibly my salary will never be on the same level as if I had stayed in the US. It seems like a good compromise considering other quality of life issues like vacation and working hours, but that doesn’t take into account all the bullshit I deal with just to live in France).

But when it comes down to it, for the moment at least, I want to be here.

Often the grass seems greener on the other side, but as I’ve watered it where I am (thanks to the advice of a dear friend) it’s gotten pretty green here.

Maybe I’m here because I’ve realized that all that really matters is that we are good and we enjoy our lives, though its important to know the rules of the game of life, and accept them, so we can do what makes us happy. I may not be working in the field I envisioned, but I like my job, and it’s allowed me to get here.

And then here wasn’t all I cracked it up to be and it turns out that it’s important to really like  your job, because at first I didn’t! ANd money is important too, no matter how idealistic you might be.

I’m here to figure it out, to reflect on the ups and downs of life, and learning to accept the downs.

Which, though melancholy, is actually making me a happier and better person, thanks by the way, to Alain de Botton: http://www.thebookoflife.org/in-praise-of-melancholy/

People say the French are sad and mean, and they like sad endings to movies and don’t believe in happy endings. TO a certain extent, they are more realistic.

They may not answer in surveys that they are very happy, because they are romantics and expect better from life. Or maybe, they just accept the sadness that is a part of life and don’t try to window dress it with cheerfulness and positive thinking.

There are many ways to live.

And I”m here because even if one day I have to say a tearful goodbye, even if I’ve just made one long detour and I have to start again at square one somewhere, it was worth it.

It’s my life, and I”m enjoying it.

Now time to go to Montmartre, and enjoy the beauty of the autumn day.

What I would tell you, if I hadn’t already said goodbye

29 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by mjthecreator in Uncategorized

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expat, friendship, life, lost love, love, mystery, romance, romanticism, travel

First of all, I really don’t understand why you pulled the plug so abruptly on our friendship. It might not have anything to do with me, but you gave me a lame excuse for being uncommunicative last time and said a lot had happened. So I do feel like it’s personally, not to mention the fact that when I called, you seemed to just shut the phone off. I really don’t know what to say to that, besides the fact there’s probably nothing to say.

I get the feeling that you are back with your ex or something. More than likely, you just don’t want to talk to me anymore. Becaus eyou know it’s a dead end and either can’t be bothered or don’t want to lead me on anymore.

Or maybe, something horrible happened and you are shutting everybody out, and there’s nothing personal about it. Still, I know you stopped reading my chat messages which just doesn’t seem to make sense.

Maybe a relationship like ours could never be a stable friendship. I’ve cut you off a few times and you have welcomed me back with open arms, but when it comes down to it, I’ve always put in a lot more effort and probably taken things more seriously. Though I always thought I added something to your life and maybe a small part of you needed me. I felt like I was important for you.

I’m probably going to send this after all, ego be damned. Maybe it’s my self respect or self worth that’s lacking, or maybe because it really hasn’t been that hard to live without you and I’ve just turned you into a character in my psychodrama about “who is MJ” and you’re just another symbol of how I have had trouble accepting love and instead have been seeking it in all the wrong places. Or maybe what made the story so sweet from the beginning is that the words never rhymed and it was not likely to amount to anything, but as a Romantic, I wanted to believe in love that conquers all and there was a lot to conquer. Or maybe there’s nothing so beautiful as tragic, hopeless, unrequited love. I don’t even know that you can call it love because even though I feel like I really know you and feel your feelings, I really haven’t spent more than a few hours with you when it comes down to it.

I deleted almost everything that had to do with you.

Maybe this was just a literary exercise, an attempt to make art in life more than anything else.

I know if I had met lots of eligible people, if I wasn’t in France, I may well have just forgotten about you. Not exactly forgotten, but I probably would have let it go a little more gracefully.

The funny thing is living without you hasn’t bothered me all that much. I have my own stuff going on and things are going well.

SO I decided to stay in France until late September. I wanted to leave in the rush of the moment and was at the point of giving that answer, but the math just didn’t add up to leave my job in early March, nor did my desire to visit a bit more of Europe. I just wasn’t ready to leave but a lot of the time, as I’ve expressed to you at length, I feel like i can’t stay here forever. Or rather, I don’t want to.

And I do want to go back to DC. It will be a shame not to see you, but that’s the way things go sometimes.

I feel like France is the love that wasn’t meant to become marriage at times. I can see myself living here, but it’s hard to relaly see myself commiting to anything or anyone here for the long run. I could do it, but I’m not sure it’s really what I want.

When I come home next month, that should help me figure it out. I’ll be in America from 21 December to 6 January, and I do think I want to squeeze in a trip to DC.

It might feel hopelessly provincial, been there done that, and I might realize that despite the many issues I have in France, I’m better off here at least for the time being.

Or I might realize it’s the one place besides Paris I’ve ever wanted to go back to, and the place I thought correctly that I wanted to end up. Have been having a lot of DC flashbacks, thinking of Capitol Hill and M Street and all the rest. It feels like another life.

I don’t knwo where I will stay, my friend from pre-school who lives there can be a little flaky and is pretty busy, an old friend from high school  debate is too flirty, and I’m not sure if I want to stay with my friend in Maryland who I traveled with for two weeks and two weeks was plenty. We shall see.

Sometimes it’s easier to spill your guts out to a brick wall, and easier to bond with a vacation fling than somebody who you know you’ll see again. But I like to think I always wanted to see you again, and we would have at least been friends under other circumstances.

Don’t know how to end this, besides to say I hope we come to the end and I will gracefully let go or it’s a real chance to start again.

Whether I Stay or Go

29 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by mjthecreator in Uncategorized

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adventure, advice, America, career, change, decisions, expatriate, friends, growing up, identity, life, love, Paris, philosophy, travel, twenty something, Washington

For me, it’s been easy to collapse all my identity crises and the difficulties of growing up into one big question, with existential and practical implications- should I stay in France or should I go? Should I go, elsewhere in Europe, or in the world? Or should I just go home.

Bon Jovi would understand- just a hometown boy, born a rollin stone.

It does seem like people become more into country music as they age.  The other day I actually turned on the country music internet radio when I was at work, instead of the Disney music and early 90s esque stuff I usually listen to. And Walk Off the Earth, which “the boy” introduced me to.

Some facts will remain whether I stay or go.

1) The time will pass anyway. I will be 27 next year.

2) I want to build my career and have a more interesting job- and yet, I recognize that my job is not going to be my only or main source of fulfillment.

3) I want to be in a more serious relationship- definitely if I go home, that will be a major source of motivation- the ease of meeting people with similar values. yet, if I stay here, that’s a value too. I have been in dead-end situations and just flirtations for a while now, and it has suited me to be single during this self discovery chapter of my life.  But I’m beginning to really want a boyfriend who I could see at my side indefinitely- and that will mean he has to love traveling too-but being in a relationship will bring constraints. Instead of doing everything for my personal growth and my impulses, I will have to consider someone else, and though I may try my best to find someone who wants to jet-set between America, France, and locations yet unknown, I have to face the fact that the balance will shift in favor of one or the other (it would happen anyway but it will be influenced by my choice of significant other) and deal with those consequences.

4) Whatever I choose is not forever, and I could pick up and leave at any time. Life is crazy– and yet, we define it by our choices. If I choose to stay in France, it won’t be because I wholeheartedly agree with everything French- and if I go it won’t be an uncritical endorsement of America- but I’m going to have to live with the consequences of my decision. For my career and my honor, it’s best to look at whatever comes next as likely to be a solid 18 month stretch at least. Can always change your mind, but it’s best to start out at least thinnking that that’s about what it’s likely to be.

5)  Whether we like it or not, life hardens into identities- the traveler, the businesswoman, the writer-no matter how contradictory they may seem. But life also has a way of forcing you to give up your identity and become something else. That is what life is all about- we grow from baby to toddler to child to tweenager to teen to college student to “emergerging adult,” finally to adult, and maybe mother or father, and then we become middle aged, hopefully robust seniors, and eventually we die.  To push the freeze button on any of these stages is to deny life and growth. The only way to be forever young and growing is to affirm life in all its wonder, from beginning to end. If you hang on to a stage, you really are missing out on what life has in store for you at a different time. Right now I’m happy to go out for drinks, totally carefree, and wake up whenever I want to in the morning, but people who have young children, while they may wax nostalgic, probably wouldn’t give up their kids to go back to partying.  And the irony is that for me, going out can become pretty stale, and I am hoping to meet that person I will want to give up partying for, who will get up early with our little kids.  Maybe I feel too much angst over it, like a teenager who believes their destiny hinges on an sat score or another big test, to get into the right college, pick the right major, and all th rest of it, but even after having lived through the competitiveness and perectionism of the ambitious teen years and come to a frankly less ambitious country and more of a rolling stone way of life, I still do think that preparation and good choices are important. It’s never all or nothing.

The other thing is not everyone is going to hit the same stages or hit them in the same way. FOr some people, quitting their job and traveling the world is the most mature choice they will ever make. FOr others, stability may never look like a corporate job and might mean accepting that you prefer the artist’s garret or a startup incubator. Know thyself.

And as for those choices, they lead you to some pretty unexpected places.  Right now I’m tempted (or pulled, not sure) to go back to where I started.

6) There are no guarantees.

7) It’s what we do after the decision that makes it a good or bad one. The main thing is, keep on living. Don’t turn back.

Wherever you go, there you are.

To have loved, without a happy ending (so far) OR How I Just Became French

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by mjthecreator in Uncategorized

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adventure, career, dating, distance, france, goals, life, loneliness, love, men, philosophy, travel, women

A long time ago, about four years to be exact, a lost, lonely girl met a lost, lonely guy. But neither of them were really sad at heart; they were both dreamers and doers and found solace in each other’s company. It was a love that didn’t require touch, but the last time they were to see each other, at least for a very long time because only God knows for these things, they finally did kiss. The girl had never felt that way before, and wouldn’t again, for a long time.

She told him how she felt- he said it couldn’t be for they were to part and live their separate journeys.

But they kept in touch, sometimes best of friends, yet sometimes she would feel abandoned because he didn’t write back to her. She kept on writing all the same, eventually. And he couldn’t say it because he couldn’t lead her astray- she was winning awards, gaining titles, and seeing faraway lands- but he loved her, in his way too. Sometimes as just a friend, and sometimes as the woman he wanted by his side, and to mother his children.

Yet deep inside, I think he knew from the begining it was not to be. And he loved again. And the girl held on, because in her travels, so often lonesome, she didn’t met anyone who compared to him. And yet, there came a point when she too, wanted someone on her side on her path, and he was no where to be found. And sometimes it felt like he just couldn’t hear her, couldn’t feel her loneliness for him, and didn’t return her love and devotion.

The man remain a mystery, even to himself.

One day, not long after the girl told him of her plans to return to their shared favorite town, he just stopped answering. The last thing he said to her was that a lot had happened and he asked where she was calling from. He did envy her adventures, yet he stayed home.

And the girl stopped calling for him, knowing that for one reason or another, he didn’t want to talk to her anymore. And she was mad and sad and disappointed. She felt hurt and betrayed. Still worried for him though.

But reluctantly, yet with a sigh of relief. she said her goodbye.

It’s said that not all words have to rhyme and not all stories have a clear-cut, happy ending.

Maybe they will see each other again, though the girl isn’t sure he could win back her friendship, let alone her heart. She wants a man who can be her hero.

The girl, grateful for her adventures, dreams of home, yet she loves where she is.

But it’s alright. The spirit moves in mysterious ways. And whether it was a happy ending or not, it did.

Sometimes love makes us happy, but it can also awaken the sublime, the tidal forces within and without us that guide us to our destiny- and destination. There are forces in this world beyond our control, and love is one of them.

There are moments you realize that the journey is more important than the destination, yet without the destination, there wouldn’t be a true journey.

Every step is the journey, we can escape the path no more than we could escape the love of God.

And we are blessed, she is blessed, I am blessed- to have loved.

The Pearl of Great Price: hidden in the dirt

22 Saturday Nov 2014

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adventure, alive, America, being, buddhism, career, change, choice, christianity, enlightenment, Europe, family, france, life, living, love, Paris, philosophy, prague, present, psychology, self realization, self-actualization, spirituality, travel, twenty something

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, 46 who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.”

— Matthew 13:44

Since I was asked to decide whether to renew my contract in France or not around 5 October, my life has been in an uproar. I have been seeking relentlessly and restlessly, trying to figure out what it is that I want, and more importantly, why once I got what I wanted in coming to Paris, I wasn’t immediately ecstatically happy. More importantly, I’ve been trying to figure out if my reasons for coming to Paris were hopelessly flawed- trying to decide if it’s just an illusion, a mirage, sheer psychosis that led me here, trying to escape my reality in some way- or if indeed, this is my own Grail Quest of sorts, and it is the deepest longing of my soul that I followed in coming.

And also, I have finally given myself permission to just be happy. Period.

During this period, I have consulted various expat, professional, and life coaches, gone on a cleanse diet, bought some fancy French perfume, Czech garnets, and a real leather wallet, asked everyone I know for advice, got in touch with an old lover, severed ties with someone I thought was the love of my life, stopped going to Crossfit (will return), let my room become a total pigsty to the point I was finding broken glass, run up my credit cards and overdrawn my bank account, started meditating, finally found a cool expat group, met an American psychologist married to a French guy, started to meditate, cleaned my room finally and even organized my clothes rack, and fulfilled my bucket list goal of going to Prague. It’s been beautiful and tumultuous, and mostly very hair raising, and things are starting to make sense. In retrospect I wonder why I couldn’t have come to the same place in a more orderly fashion, but the truth is that that’s not how life works.

In the end, it wasn’t a breakdown born of taking a wrong turn. It’s a spiritual awakening, the surest sign that I’m on the path.

This is the messy stuff that doesn’t fit inside the covers of Eat Pray Love or the latest piece in the New York Times on why French women don’t get fat and French kids are all angels.

This is the stuff Brene Brown had to get through in order to leave her corporate job, become a social worker, and ultimately give awesome life changing Ted talks.

This is the wrestling with angels and demons that you have to go through to find your genius. And yes, everyone has one, and we are all created equal, but not the same. And you have to have the guts to face the monster in order to learn to “not just survive inthe storm, but dance in the rain.”

“where your dragon is, there lies your treasure.” Joseph Campbell

I’m learning to be patient with myself. Which is a gift unto itself, because I”ve never been patient with myself. I have never in my life felt like I was enough as I was, except as a small child. Despite all the love of fmaily and friends, despite all the body positive fat talk free zones, despite all the “all that matters is you try your best,” I have never really felt like I was enough.

I have always felt irreparably different from other people, separate, apart, and I was right. As we are all unique. What I wouldn’t have given on some level, to be normal, but I was always too stubborn, and too greedy to be special to try that hard to blend in.

Because if you can’t be like everyone else, you might as well try to be the best at everything.

Because somehow, if you always feel less, if you always fall short of your expectations, in some way you’ve held yourself to a higher standard, and in that sense you’ve won. You can hold yourself apart, tear yourself apart, rather than going down to meet the people who you fear will never, could never, you KNOW will never accept you as you are. Because you like to read and they like to run around, becase you are fat and they are effortlessly thin, because you are serious and theoretically mature and they are just having fun and not trying too hard. Because your body was a woman so young, and you were a head taller, and you had to be smart on top of it too. How could they ever accept you? How could you ever accept yourself  when you felt like such a mutant?

So what was there to do but to turn into yourself, to try so hard, to escape into the fantasy that one day you would be better, worthy, ideal, although that day never seemed to come, and each time it was close, some ancient reptilean part of you would just tear your progress to shreds, because at some even deeper level, you didn’t want to be perfect, you wanted to be yourself,and to be loved as you are.

But since you couldn’t do that, you assumed no one else accepted you, let alone loved you. No matter how much mentally you may have known you were loved, you could never let it fully penetrate : I am loved, and loveable.

The quest for perfection/superiority to compensate for feligns of being different and inner lack took many forms. You wanted to save the world, a noble goal, and then you despaired of it totally- because it was never your burden to bear. And there were so many people you loved, that you wanted so badly for them to really love you, and you wanted to save them in return- to make them love you, and to deserve their love. But alas, that never really worked. Love that climbed mountains and oceans and rivers and stood the test of time just failed time and again the test of becoming yourself. As you grew, they couldn’t stay in your life nor you in theirs, and that’s ok.

And you could never have escaped your self recrimination through romantic love alone, anyway. It wasn’t your fault you never found real love, it just wasn’t your time.  Love can provide redemption, but not self redemption.

Nothing in my life has ever broken me down this hard. I thought the quarter life crisis was over, and I would never get that bad again. But the truth is, the wound is where the light enters as Rumi said.

And the light has entered in a big, big way.

For the first time in my life, I actually know what I want:

What I have at this moment. To live in Paris, to continue to live in Europe, to perfect my French, to work in an international/cross cultural setting, to take weekend trips to Prague and Germany, to have long vacations…

and a bit more- to really love and be loved, to surround myself with a family of friends, and to love the people I care about all the ways tha I can…

even if I am living in nine square meters, paying ridiculous taxes, have to deal with French administration and even more daunting, parisian people, and it scares me to death that I am not spending as much time as I could be with my family, because one day we will all die.

-Although I’ll be seeing them for a solid three weeks over Christmas, and talk to them a few times a week. At least I am truly emotionally present and am living the life I want, which is what the people who love me really want for me, anyway. And if I get called home, I will go.

Although speaking of home, every step is the journey and the destination. Home really is inside of you. It’s not even the people who surround you, it’s letting yourself feel safe, loved, and connected.

You see, I’ve gotten into Buddhism recently (who hasn’t) and the truth is, we are born alone and we die alone. The truth is, there is pain in life. There are many, many things we can’t control.  But thankfully, we can learn to control our minds, and find peace and stillness within.

Happiness, or pleasure, is only a small part of what peple are after. Without inner peace, happiness cannot be enjoyed.

And so I am happy to say that though my inner peace is lost from time to time, like the sun hidden among clouds, I have found it, and luckily it can never really be lost.

And even better, I have learned to recognized just how happy I am. My soul has what it wants. I can’t xplain in any rational way WHY I want to be here, why it’s so important for me to speak French, why I had to leave my family and travel.

I do not have any sort of reasonable explanation.

The idea of going just to have a “Cultural experience,” is weak to me. I’ve already had cultural expeirences, albeit not in as much depth. And even if that is the intermediate answer, the existential question of WHY still remains.

All is know is that what i feel is on par with Cooper in the movie Interstellar who goes through a wormhole and itno a new galaxy, to find a new planet after Earth is ruined.

Do I feel like I am saving the human race? Maybe, but the sheer thrill of adventure, of discovery, exploration, which may well be the defining feature of the human race, is what pushes me on. There are many virtues and ways of serving, but the thing with being an adventurer is that you serve the planet, quite unwittingly, by serving yourself. The myth of martyrhood loses its grip on you. Your joy is ultimately humanity’s joy, but you don’t have to deny yourself in the process because you are doing what you most want to do .

I know I have found my passion because it rips me to shreds everyday, dashing me on the rocks like a giant wave recalling the sublime, the sheer power, beauty, force, and enormity of the eternal, the power beyond the planets and the individual butterflies, the thing that makes the moon go round the earth.

Something, so deep inside me that there is no bottom, there is no where to go further down below, prompted me to be here.

No matter how much the world told me it was crazy, because it wasn’t prompted by the desire for money, power or “stability.”

Will I stay here forever? I don’t know.

Do I think it’s better than the US? not better, just different, and better in ways that are important to me.

Why I have to be strange and want to travel and live in France is beyond me, though these days I’m thinking that maybe I’m special and this is just my contribution to the world.

To show that there is real freedom, many ways of living, alternatives.

And there’s nothing like being a child again, every day, in a world that is always, and will always be new.

And when it comes down to it, I don’t need a reason to be here.

When your soul speaks, you listen.

So far I am finding many, many treasures as a result of following this path of a more conventional nature, like inadvertently finding a great job.

But most importantly, I have found a reliance on something much greater and more profound than myself- God- and looking into the darkness of the abyss, finally making it to the top of the mountain, and contemplating the endless sky, I found myself.

It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better.”
— Ella Maillart,
Swiss travel writer

I could have stayed in my trance of perfectionism. I ould have ben a lot more “successful,” had I just done something seemingly normal and got a job in my home country– but probably I never would have been satisfied adn other crises would ensue as I pondered what might have been, and my worldview hardened. a part of me would have been dead, because that wasn’t my life to live.

It was never a mistake, it was never wandering off my path for me to come here. This divergence from the life I planned- this is the real path. This is my real life.

Where the path will take me, I don’t know but for a while I want to stay here. And I will find a way, by the grace of God. ANd that’s all I need to know.

I have found my treasure, and it was disguised as a barren field. I was on the path, because every step I questioned it. I am right on course, because it’s only my inner knowing that tells me this is where I”m meant to be, and I had to give up a million unlived lives to get here, yet, here in my pajamas on a Saturday afternoon, writing in my little room all by myself, this is it.

This is freedom, this is a version of enlightenment. This is joy, this is happiness.

This is not falling down the rabbit hole. This is not trying to escape.

This is getting taken down by a wave, not being sure which way is up, and following your instinct to sweet air.

This is wholly real, the adventure of my life.

This is the place, the story that came to define me but I never imagined, I never defined myself as.

This is life happening.

And most importantly, this is me happy, letting everything go.

This is me, self-realized.

Falling, flying, drifting, diving.

Traveler, there is no path, just waves upon the sea.

Ever step is the path, every moment the destination.

Life is not a circle, it’s not a line, it’s not an arrow, it’s a point. Right here, and right now.

I’m meant to be here because this is where I am. There is no life I’m meant to live but this, and no person I’m meant to be but myself.

This is joy, this is freedom.

Hallelujah!

Transformation

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by mjthecreator in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

expat, french, life, Paris, self-esteem

“up ahead in the distance, I heard the mission bells…
this could be heaven or this could be hell…” Hotel California, Eagles

I hear this song in the metro, a really awesome guitarist playing, and it captures my experience perfectly. I don’t know which way is up some days, and when you are really living your dream-or crazy fantasy psychosis- it can be, and often is, terrifying.

My life often feels divided along binary lines-american/french, practical/dreamer, beauty/truth.
I do live in another somewhat messianic society that is something of a polar opposite (in the Western tradition) of my own- new world/old world, latin/anglo saxon, english/french.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve fallen through the rabbit hole, or through the looking glass.

And on this side of the looking glass, in some ways I feel a lot more beautiful, and yet a lot more ugly duckling like, and that I can never fit in.
But then I felt that way on the other side too, I just had higher expectations and pressure for doing so.

But the bigger truth is not just where I live now, through a seeing act of grace.

The real thing is accepting who I am. Because all this change has stirred up a lot of stuff.
And forced me to change, a lot.
In another year I probably will be a completely different person.

it often feel slike a battle between freedom and security, and independence and isolation vs connectednss and constraint.

But thse battles are mostly not in the real world, they are mostly in my had.

And wherever you go, there you are- the battles were there before I left, I am just forced to face them more now.

And the biggest battle is over whether I should be happy, wheter I can be happy, wheter I dserve to be happy- and if this is it, this is happinss amidst the bumps in the road.

And could it be really, that in this fairytale place, I become a princess of some kind? Could it be I’m actually doing way better than I ever could have imagined?

And could it be, much more seriously, that it was never about France at all, it was about me.
And whether I had the courage, not only to do what I wanted, but to enjoy it.
And I’m like the ugly duckling hat’s turned into a swan, and I have no reflection.

But I know it’s happening little by litte- parts are changing inside me.

But then, aren’t we all? or at least it’s this part of the curve-
Aprrenatly it epends on the dojo and all.

And if I can face the music and finally see myself accurately for the wonderful person I am, the more I can face the world.

Happy, sunshine, laughter. I can do this!

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