“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began”

So here I am.  Beginning.  I have left the stage of my life that centers around school, I have left my boyfriend of two years, and soon I will leave this country.  So many endings are converging, wrapping around each other and forming a coil for me to balance on.  Some days I cry with the twisting ends and feel myself constrain between the strands.  Other days it’s as if I have already let go, and I look back to see the wire begin to rust and weaken like the tips of old onion greens.

Now I sit alone with so much emptiness that is slowly transforming into incredible space.  In her poem “Blue Iris”, Mary Oliver writes:

my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,                                                                                        the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

Sometimes one must be empty before becoming fulfilled.  Sometimes one must wait before running breathlessly toward the answer.  I am letting go of the panic of wanting to be a certain way.  I am learning to accept that my dreams may change and the vision of my future may wobble until it comes to focus on a new light.  With these lessons I begin again, and already excitement is growing inside of me.