Show me how pretty the world is...

Show me how pretty the world is.
Cause I envy the way that you move
Show me how pretty the world is
Cause I want something just a little bit louder
Show me how pretty the world is
Cause you're brilliant when you try
Show me how pretty the whole world is tonight
Pretty the World by Matt Nathenson

I know last time I wrote I was overpowered with negativity. There was a gloomy London rain cloud over my head and I just couldn’t escape it. I realized I was in much need of a day away from that rain and so, after I wrote the last blog, I spent an entire afternoon writing in my journal and putting thoughts to paper and watching ink dry as my words sunk in. I was hoping to take control of answering my own questions, I think that in the end I got a lot more than answers could ever provide. That is where the opening lyrics come in…after all the negative from last time…this time I really just hope that you can see how pretty the world is, and I hope that sometimes I can show you that!

Journaling has always helped me. It provides a release and sometimes I could really write for hours just to get thoughts out of my head. It helps me to fully think every thing through and to be as completely honest with myself as I can be. I make connections, every once in awhile I might actually make sense, and sometimes I come out of it a little better off than when I started. I have kept a journal, mostly only on my travels, for the past few years. I really just started it to help keep track of where I had been and what I have done, and although I haven’t even finished one journal, I have still provided several pages of thoughts and feelings over the years. The best part about this journal is that it provides a mirror of where I was last time I was in London, and where I was when I was in Central America. Not just the location of my adventures, but a picture of the person I was and the thoughts that were in my head. I don’t always write about my travels but often put my thoughts, feelings and questions down on paper. I read over these journals from the last time I was in London and from my Central America travels and I can’t help but be consumed with a sense of happiness. Seeing the girl that I was, so many questions and doubts and worries about people in my life and how relationships with boys fit into it all. A theme runs rampant that boys were often the cause of my problems and the questions in my head (isn’t that always the case). Struggling to move on, struggling to hold on, and struggling to find myself amongst the wreckage of past and present relationships.

It is crazy to read back through it all, to dig through the ashes of the girl that I was and realize that so much of what I worried about never really mattered. And to see the remnants of that girl in the woman I have become. To see that there are still moments where I worry about men (dare I still call them boys?) in my life now but it seems so much different. Maybe it is because, as a result of the past, I have built up walls for my future and defenses that don’t allow for the hurt and questions that once filled my world. Or maybe it is the fact that I have finally completed myself enough now to truly be happy standing alone. I don’t really know the answer although after reading through the journals and seeing how seemingly lost I was, I would like to say that it is the latter. I thought that I knew myself so well then. I thought I understood who I was and what I wanted but the further I get from that point in my life the more I realize I really had no idea. I am sure that in many ways I still don’t, but it is comforting to feel like I am getting somewhere.

Life is about change and about discovery and over the course of years, even our more adult years, we all still grow, we all still change, and no matter how much we think we know ourselves, most of us continue to struggle and search just the same. Somehow, in that search, we continue to find ourselves among the disaster that our questions and struggles have broken us down to. I guess this just goes to show you that there are reasons for our hardships, a purpose to every war and every internal battle…just try to remember what you are fighting and searching for when you find yourself holding the gun, loaded with questions…the struggle is worth it, the answers are worth it, and most of the time you are too.

xx
WC