Snow

"Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow." -Oscar Wilde

The silence of snow brings a peace to my mind that washes over me. I can't say I long for the chill of winter when I am basking in the warmth of summer, but there is nothing that compares to watching the world disappear and become a blank slate once again.

I used to be one of those people who believed in dreams, big dreams, the kind with wings that soared high above the earth. I believed if you wanted something bad enough it would just work out. I say I used to be because until recently that part of me has been buried by responsibility and what can be defined simply as life.

I used to stay up late and look out of my window when I was younger during snow storms. The ground would be covered in a pristine white powder that made it seem as if everything was glowing. There were no footprints, no plows, and no noise. It was the point in the storm that always brought me a sense of peace. It was after the chaos of people running to the store to get provisions, and before the shoveling, the screaming children playing, and the plowing. No one could go anywhere, and all was quiet. I don't think I fully understood it at the time. I look back on it now and feel how powerful it was in my young life. I would stare out my window and feel as if the world had slowed down just for me, so I could watch my breath go in and out fogging up a spot on the window. I would be wrapped in my comforter, curled into a ball by that window, and the rest of my house would be silent. It was in those moments that I allowed my dreams to be born, and to grow beyond my imagination. Words would flow innocently throughout my mind and eventually I would drift off to sleep without fear and without chaos. I would allow myself to be completely immersed in the darkness and silence. As the years pass that silence becomes harder to find, and the things that break it become more pressing and harder to escape.

I was on the phone with my mom a few months ago. I was curled in a ball on my bed crying endlessly. The scenery out my window had changed a bit since I was a young girl. Rather then the green lull of suburbia rocking me to sleep there was an endless supply of sirens, rustling garbage, and the 7 subway screeching on the tracks nearby. My ability to escape into thoughts of one day become a famous writer, falling in love in Paris, and searching the world for the perfect danish had been replaced by thoughts of paying rent, the constant edge of poverty I was living on, and the lack of brilliance in my current profession. My mother was trying to talk some sense into me, saying beginnings were always hard and that I would find my way. She would remind me that I was living in New York City on my own accord and that dreams didn't come all at once, they took time and effort. She told me she was proud of me, and that I was doing ok, but that I needed to feel all of these things myself. She then asked me a question that has lingered with me since that day. In the midst of my tears, my anxious babbling about the pressure I was feeling, and the darkness of hopelessness that was eminent in my tone, she said, "What happened? What happened that made you lose that hope you used to have, that made you stop believing?" It jarred me into a reality I was not prepared for. Is this how the world sees me now, as someone lacking in hope and constantly complaining about their station in life? If this was true what had happened, and at what point had my life gotten so desperate that I had succumb to feeling bad about myself all of the time?

I'm still not exactly sure what the answers to any of those questions are but I've figured a few things out. Life gets more and more real as we age, and the key to dealing with that is remembering what it felt like when it was still easy and when sleep came quickly and without question. If we can bring ourselves back there every once in a while, we won't have people asking us when we lost our hope and how we became the way we did.

The thing with dreams is that when they manifest into reality they are no longer dreams, they become life. Life can be hard, even when it's what we want. It can easily suffocate the hope within all of us if we let it. But as beautiful as dreams are, life is all we really have. It is the backbone of who we are. We have to embrace it for what it is and keep going, and always remember that in the living out of one dream another can and should be born. When one thing turns out to be less then what we expected that just means it is a step towards some other dream.

I don't think there is a simple answer to the question my mother asked me that day aside from the obvious one, I grew up. That question pushed me to stop feeling sorry for myself though. I am living some version of my dream, and in doing so new ones are born every day. I turned off the noise of New York City that night. I turned it off and crawled into my past and suddenly, I was laying in silence, staring out my window looking at a blanket of snow that represented my innocence. Sleep came easily that night, and there was no sign of being abruptly thrown into adulthood anywhere.

Wednesday

Have you ever just completely let go, and let the world move through you? I did it the other day.

It was a Wednesday.

The sun was out, and the air was crisp.

Suddenly I looked up while I was walking down the street and I saw life for a moment from the outside as if I wasn't a part of myself. I saw all of the anger I had inside of me and why it was there, I saw all of the love I still had left to give, and I saw all of the reasons I am where I am right now. I let go knowing that in that moment it was exactly what I was supposed to do. I saw all of my imperfections, I saw the formidable attitude with which I had faced things in the past. I saw the release that I needed. Letting go is the hardest thing. Sometimes facing the things that wear on us and being honest about the part we have played in life's events can be terrifying. The thing is, when you realize it happened, and you did all you could do, you see that moving on isn't so hard after all. None of us are born free of imperfections. None of us move through life without being wronged by something or someone. It's those imperfections and those moments that create an incredibly visceral state of being. When you accept what has been and what has come to pass it becomes a lot easier to open new doors and to be free from that which hangs on you.

I walked for hours that day without a destination. It's something I do often lately. I look up, and I look around, and I look inside myself. Being alone right now is the best and hardest thing my life has ever encountered. I am forced to deal with myself and look myself in the mirror. I spend a lot of time with me, and it's something we all run from at times because what we see isn't always easy to accept. Life won't always be like this and so I am embracing it. I am embracing it even when it feels so uncomfortable I want to peel out of my skin. Everything we go through has a purpose and in some way helps to create the beautiful soul constantly being reborn within us.

Do something by yourself, even if it feels awkward. It's in knowing one's self that it becomes possible to find true happiness. I truly believe that in life if we don't know ourselves, we can't know anything outside of ourselves.

I went to bed that night and slept like I hadn't in months. It was in the acknowledgement of certain realities of my life that I could let go. It was seeing it and understanding it that freed me from the burden of hiding from it. Sometimes there are things that we face in life that are hard to look at and so we shield our eyes and we shield our hearts from it. What we miss out on when we do that is a completely gut-wrenching beauty that outweighs any discomfort felt in opening your eyes to the disaster. Everything becomes new again at some point. Everything must keep moving, and so, in life I am finding it is in the letting go that brings the most joy to experiencing this journey.

I've been walking for months...And I am content in the fact that there is no destination in sight. I am just simply moving. And that's all that really matters.

Dizzy

The subway was jolting this way and that as it always does on the old tracks. I stood firmly, reaching my hand over my head to hang on to the silver bar. I began to feel my heart slow, the blood drain from my face. My breath quickened, or did it? I knew this feeling well and dreaded it. I remember sweating and someone giving me their seat. Was I conscious? There were people all around me. Voices became distant. I was being given water. I was immersed by darkness.

The next thing I fully remember was sitting on a bench on the platform in Grand Central Station, the 7 subway train racing by us. There were MTA workers all around me, asking me questions. All I could feel was numb, hot, tired. The paramedics came, I was brought out of the subway station with an oxygen mask on and an IV was administered in the ambulance. I cried but somewhere inside a part of me wanted to laugh. Anything else to make this transitional time in my life harder?? I spent the rest of the afternoon in the emergency room. Tests were done, blood drawn, more questions were asked. I could have told them why I fainted. It runs in my family, I have high anxiety even when I have nothing to be anxious about, I didn't drink enough fluids...

In truth my diagnosis is this...I need to let go. I am so tightly wound, I feel I have to have control over everything in my life or it will fall apart. I feel I have to be terrified, nervous, decisive. I don't know where I am going, but I am here. I am living in New York City. I got a job in my field, rented an apartment that I barely fit in and can barely afford, and I am alive. I live in the greatest city in the world, and I'm doing it. I can look down the street in the morning and see the Empire State building in all it's glory. I can look down the street at night and watch the sun set over that building. I don't know where I'll be in a year, and that has to start to be ok for me. I have to realize no matter where I go, I will get there, and I can say I did this. It's in the not knowing that we figure out who we are, and then a little piece of the knowing falls into place. Life is all about the journey. And sometimes the journey is painfully real.

I'm dizzy with life. Somedays, it almost kills me. I don't tell many people how hard it can be for me. But the people that do know are my angels on a daily basis. It's the few that know you when you are completely and utterly falling apart that truly love you and can truly see your soul.

I fainted on the subway. In Grand Central Station. In New York City. I'll look back at that, and at so many other moments during this time in my life, and I'll smile. I'll smile because I survived. It happened. That's the thing with life, it just keeps happening.