Learning to Live

Most of you who have been with me for a while know that I'm coming up on a pretty big anniversary. It's been a year since I lost one of the most important people in my life...my dad. That one event threw my world off its axis and I've spent the better part of a year trying to get it back on track.

So here I sit, almost an entire year older and I hope a little wiser. I've been through a lot in the last year, but what I have discovered is that I need to learn how to live. For the most part, I've been simply going through the motions, but I haven't really been living life.
I had a professor this year who told me I need to loosen up, let my hair down, and just have some fun. I sat across from this man who I consider a brilliant man and was dumbfounded. 

He told me I wasn't having fun with my writing. I thought I was having a ball with my writing. I mean, writing is a serious business, right? The good doctor looked at me with a smile on his face and said, "Writing is a very serious business, but if you aren't having any fun, then why the hell are you doing it?" This from the Absent-minded professor? (The brilliant man could never remember where we were when it came to writing assignments.) I walked away from this meeting in a different frame of mind...one that really had me thinking.

I put aside what I was working on and put all of my efforts into something new and different. I focused on my blog for school (http://iambeautifulat.blogspot.com) and my algebra homework. I picked up a book I've been wanting to read and delved beneath the pages. I found myself smiling more and laughing with friends. I simply stopped trying to live and actually lived.

School came to an end. I finished my exams and I'm not worried about my grades. Why? Because once I stopped worrying about things, it all began to work. I'm simply letting go.

Yesterday, I got up, popped Nickelback on my MP3 player, tied on my tennis shoes, and went for a walk. I have been having some issues lately and I needed to work them out in my head. A lot of my issues deal with the negative voices in my head. Somebody told me it's a record that I need to stop listening to. So, on my walk, I took the record and smashed the hell out of it. There is no way that record can be put back together.

Somewhere along the way this year, I lost sight of me. I stopped believing in myself and thus, lost my passion. I deserve passion! I owe it to myself and I will damn well have it!

So this is me...I'm letting my hair down, giving a huge rebel yell, and I'm barefooting it for awhile. I'm almost 41. I'm not dead. I'm alive and kicking. This is my year of learning to live!