I’ve spent a long time trying to keep the kid inside of me alive. I’ve always looked back, even at much younger ages, and thought about time spent and years lost. I’ve been afraid of change, so I’ve lived my life the same way for a long time - in the same place for a long time. Sometimes it seems scary to take that leap of faith that you’ve been aching to take. Often I have to remind myself that the few times I’ve taken great leaps of faith, I’ve always managed to land on my feet in one way or another. It has required a certain level of growth, but I’ve come to realize that there’s actually a great deal of excitement in the prospect of pivoting towards a previously unimagined outcome.
Change can be difficult, and especially difficult to accept if you’re still living in the place where you grew up, and every road you drive down is memory lane. I look at trees and I see myself beneath them with childhood friends, eating lunch. I look at baseball fields and I see my father pitching balls to my brother. Maybe my fear of the future has stemmed from my fear of making the wrong decisions now, and not ending up heading down the path that I was supposed to. But I do now know that every decision I’ve made has helped me to learn, every failure has helped me to grow, and every success has given me a reason to keep taking chances.
By the way, I’m actually dictating this verbally to my iPhone, on a bench next to an empty baseball field. For some reason we are having a 75° day here in New York, and it’s on these kinds of warm days that I feel like I am a part of that easy breeze blowing through the trees, and I’m at peace enough to reflect positively.
Change can be a good thing. There, I’ve finally said it. I have some exciting new things on the horizon, in both my professional life and my personal life. I’m resolving to resist stagnating and holding onto a time or place that will never be the same again. I think I’m in a place where I can accept that the child inside of me that I’ve been trying to save, and the years that I figured have slipped away forever, have instead aged gracefully, and are sitting here in exactly the place where I am. I’m excited to finally feel brave enough to take any leap of faith necessary to guide me to happiness, no matter how much life may change along the way, and knowing that it will always be a moving target. For now, I’m just going to sit here a little while longer and enjoy this beautiful day.
