Looking back and forward...

This is my third start at this particular entry. There are a lot of thoughts swimming around in my head, and putting them down comprehensively is proving to be a bit of a difficulty.

I've been thinking a lot about Love lately. And not in the romantic sense. (Anyone who knows me well knows that the romance has been lacking greatly in my life as of late.) But love of family and friends, life, and the Lord has grown exponentially in the last year and a half. For the first time in my life, I am truly happy, mostly content, and living my life to the fullest. I always wanted to get to this point, and now that I'm here, it's time for some reflection and to write things down.

I had a vision of myself when I was younger. From the time I first saw 'The Dead Poet's Society' when I was 14, there was this desire to 'Carpe Diem', 'contribute a verse', and live a life filled with passion. I wanted to an independent woman, confident in my own abilities and dreams. And, I wanted to be respected, someone that friends and family could rely on in crisis for support and wisdom.

Getting to that point has taken a long time. There were a lot of false-starts and life lessons that had to be learned along the way.

Passion was something that came naturally--so naturally, in fact, that I could be rightly accused to being too over-zealous. I feel every emotion intensely, and I let my emotions get the better of me. This landed me in therapy more than once over the last six years. I'm the first to admit that I can be a handful, but I now know that I wouldn't want to live a life where I don't feel those things as intensely as I do. I've just become better at managing them, without overwhelming people. And this has been a hard balance to find: being a well-adjusted adult without being an 'emotionless robot'. Stifling what I feel has never served me well.

Becoming an independent woman was also a long process. I spent the better part of my first four years in Philadelphia in tumultuous relationships. I wanted desperate to be loved and valued, and made the classic mistake of looking for it in all the wrong places. Most importantly, I didn't love and value myself. When I did begin learning to do that, my relationships started falling apart, much to my relief, actually. When they did, I took a good long look in the mirror and realized that I had no clue who I was. This was a problem.

This missing link in all of this was the Lord. When I decided to have a relationship with Jesus, everything changed. I learned to love, really love: life, family, friends, myself. My next few postings will hopefully explore this in more detail. There's a lot floating around in my head on the subject of love and the fruits of love. But, the one common thread in all of this is the love of God. I have been greatly loved, and wish the whole world could know what that feels like.