The "More" In Life

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..." :: Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

It's strange to think I have spent much of my youth, teenage years, and young adult life trying to express the concepts and ideas that this woman has written in her novel. To search the world looking for yourself? Me. To find peace and bliss and love in things that you never would have thought to look in, or at times exactly where you were looking all along but even simpler than you could have imagined? Me. I feel as if, perhaps, I could stop my chatting and just hand people over this book. Not quite my life, but she sums up so much of what I can never seem to get through to people. And her words are now being put on the big screen with Julia Roberts portraying her in her life story... makes a girl wonder. Mayhaps I should be writing more, better. And sending it off to those who can put their grimey capitalist hands all over it, making me... famous? Rich? Better? Nahhh. Able. Making me able. Able to tell my story, and not just my story but other peoples stories. Able to give back to the communities and the people that took me in and loved me as one of their own. Able to continue to grow in worldwide communities. Able.

I have a concept that I'd like to share with you, with the world. But it's not ready yet. I need to continue to work on it, smooth it over, get all the kinks out. But it is the first thing in a long while that has made me feel as though I am moving toward my purpose. So often we find ourselves struggling, looking for something more than what we are given and than what we have. The "more," whatever it is, haunts us. It's in the face of our failures, our "what if's," and even in our successes. Pressing us to work harder towards the next thing, the next success. We search for the "more" avidly, desperate and heart broken when we cannot quite put our finger on it. I, personally, am finding it is less in myself than it is in the world around me. It was on the highway in the middle of the night between Southern Oregon and Northern California. And again at the Gorge in Eastern Washington. It was hidden in the little streets of Cusco, in the deep setted valleys of Sacred Valley. The "more" was in the vast expanses of Peruvian landscape stretched before my eyes from mountain top, bus window, or edge of the road. It was in the busy sidewalks of New York City. And again as I stood in the center of the Library of Congress. I saw it in the hillsides of Tuscany, there in the fields of Sicily, and in the mountains and cliffs of northern Italy. It struck me in the sunshine of Barcelona. It glances off the side of Mount Rainier and the view from Black Butte. The "more" is here with me in the skies of the Champlain Islands. It is there in everything that I see. I'm finding the "more" that we all search for has less to do with ourselves than we could imagine, and yet that makes a perfect sense. I am now working on how to share what I have learned with the rest of the world. With the rest of you.

I'm finding calm. Slowly but surely, it's creeping upon me. Never standing still, but that calm that comes with knowing things will work out regardless of the situation. Before it was more of a nonchalant uncaring attitude about the future but as all things do, that is changing. I hope I am continuing to encourage and inspire as I write this nonsense. Once upon a time I did such things, then I disappeared. Too ashamed really, that I was not the person I thought I should be. I realize now, I was always the person I should have been. And I am even in this moment continuing to grow and make realizations. To love, learn, laugh and discover love, learning, and laughter in all things. Finding the beauty in them.

Find beauty. Tell me about where, I'd love to share that with you.

With love,