I started questioning the meaning of life when I was about 27 / 28 years old. I can't imagine that all there is to life was be born, go to school, go to college, university, get a degree, get a job, get married, have children, raise your children, grow old, retire and then die.
I've been a romantic since I was a child. I believed, I BELIEVE in a love so big, so great that it would take over my life, my existence....it would take over the world.
But then life always keeps your head out of the clouds lol....I had dinner with some girlfriends over the holiday season and I mentioned how finally in my life NOW.....in my 40s....am I finally starting to think about things like...making my hair look nice, wearing make up, having time to go get my nails done. I have time to sit around to drink coffee for hours at a time and just ponder, contemplate and day dream about life. I am finally able to have time to appreciate amazing classical and instrumental music, stare at art. To find inspiration from these art to create art, to creatively write, to creatively create.
To finally fall in love with life.
Life has so many aspects to it. At one point, we are looking straight ahead, looking at this path in front of us, at how it is winding, if there is a turn, how unpaved and bumpy it can be.
At one point, we will look back and see the foot steps marking that path we just walked and sometimes wonder how we even made it through that distance, that journey.
I feel like, now, at this point of my life, I'm choosing to stand still for a moment. To pause, look up, look down, left, right and all around. To see the colors, hear the barks and chirps, the laughter and cries; to feel the wind, my pulse, your heartbeat.
We've been through so much in life thus far. Various emotions, events; many ups and so many downs; numerous gain and great amount of loss. I've never truly thought about exactly what my gift in life is to serve to the world. Life's responsibilities were just that....responsibilities. My responsibilities in life was and is to make sure I look after myself, my younger siblings. It was to look after my responsibilities, tasks and colleagues at work, within the company, within my role, within the community, society. Then came the responsibilities of being in a committed marriage and the huge role of becoming a parent, an aunt. As our grandparents, elders and parents age, came our responsibilities as grandchildren and children.
And it seems, within this entire equation....I think I lost myself somewhere within the big bowl of mixing ingredients. I told my girlfriends that evening....I never even had a choice of whether I wanted to brush my hair or not 10 years ago. It wasn't even an option. There wasn't even a thought that crossed my mind of getting my nails done. No intention was ever planted into my spirit about sitting down, turning on the beautifully create piece of music, Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, to listen, to feel the emotions and what it instigates within to muse on about life. Much less now being constantly romanced by live orchestras, a painters dream palette of the sunrise and sunsets and let's not forget the delirious feeling of falling in love with the lattes, mochas and coffee.
I've been on a path of philosophy and spiritual learning and growth since I was 27. Without it, I wouldn't have survived the last 15+ years. I would have fallen into some sort of addiction, self-destruction with arrogance and over eagerness for power and greed. Without it, I would have died with my brother that day I got the call and probably still dying every single day today with grief and loss. So although I have lost myself within the mixture, I've also found myself amongst the entirety of the mixing.
Instead of thinking that I am one specific ingredient and I have to discover what ingredient I am within the mix....through everything written up above....I've come to discover that I am the entire mixture within the mixture.
Although my role changes as my life continues, my gift in life has not. There is no pinpointing exactly what my gift is to serve to the world....but if I had to label it....it is simply to just love. Love me, love you, love everything under the sun, moon and star. And coming up with the most humble, yet pulchritudinous creative of words and art to express and share it with the universe.
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