Another year wiser

Here we are again, another birthday passed, another trip to the beer garden, with much of the same friends as last year, but some new and some old whom I haven't seen in years! Extraordinary friends, I should say!

The past year has been a really great one: big decisions, lots of work, accomplishment, a great new friendship, some disappointments from which I have learned a great deal, and most of all, lots of joy. It's somewhat of a cliche these days to be reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, but I am gonna talk about it anyway. In so many way I can relate to her and her experiences - and this doesn't require living in an ashram in rural India for a few months - and so much in her book I find inspiring. This morning, I was reading it while sitting in a cafe outside. I was on the chapters she wrote about trying to change, becoming a more positive and caring person. So I am just gonna use some of her words because I have been thinking about these same things so much lately, but sometimes have a hard time putting them into words myself. She, being a writer and all, and of course having experiences some pretty intense spiritual awakenings, can say it much better.

There is so much about my fate I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction. There are certain lottery tickets I can buy, thereby increasing my odds of finding contentment. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I eat and read and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life - whether I will see them as curses or opportunities (and on occasions when I can't rise to the most optimistic viewpoint, because I am feeling too damn sorry for myself, I can choose to try to keep trying to change my outlook). I can choose my words and the tone of my voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can change my thoughts.

The other part that resonated with me was about her big decision to practice silence and solitude instead of being the social butterfly always chatting and gossiping and sharing her life and thoughts with everyone around her. As soon as she makes this decision, she gets appointed to be the ashram's "Key Hostess", which involves basically all that she is trying to change about herself.

So what is my natural character? I love studying in this Ashram, but my dream of finding divinity by gliding silently through the place with an ethereal smile - who is that person? That's probably someone I saw on a TV show. The reality is, it's a little sad for me to admit that I will never be that character. I've always been fascinated by these wraith-like, delicate souls. Always wanted to be the quiet girl. Probably precisely because I'm not. It's the same reason I think that thick, dark hair is so beautiful - precisely because I don't have it, because I can't have it. But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with thick, dark hair, He would have made me that way, but He didn't. Useful then, might be to accept how I was made an embody myself fully therein.

So here it is. I am me, I make no excuses for it, I try still to improve myself as a person every day to try to become the best human being I can be without giving up joy. Silence and solitude are not really for me either. While reading about it, sitting alone with my coffee cup, watching people pass by on 1st Ave, my phone rang. It was a friend inviting me for brunch, on the West side. Well, why not? Just cuz I had just eaten? Who cares? I jumped on my bike, rode across town and of course, could fit another couple of delicious mixed berry crepes in my stomach, being in the company of one of the most positive people I know in this city, and that is a good way to start becoming more positive and joyful myself. I will never be quiet and one to enjoy solitude very much. I will never be the kind who holds things in and keeps big secrets. But that's ok, this is me, and I will make no excuses for myself, as long as I try to be the best human being I can be.