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La Vie en Rose

So once again, i'm speaking about the thing I know more than anything else, myself.

Something that really is important to me is truth. Not only about being who you are but to what you want to do and be. There's nothing I hate more than seeing people changing themselves to fit in with others. Everyone is their own person, they should stay that way. For me though, I did the same thing. I used to be a different girl, and when I met a new friend, I not only changed my style but my attitude about people and life. I found that the new way I was was exhilarating and important. I had a better view of life. So changing was a good thing for me and it helped me realize and find the people that really loved me in my life.

What I think is important about life is community. Without a surrounding safe place to return to when life gets scary is special. What would it be like if we were always alone? For awhile, I thought that I had found my place. But it wasn't a little while later that I found out it wasn't the right one. But once I found my calling in France, it wasn't too long until I found my "happy place", for lack of better words.

Now, in life there always has to be fun. What kind of life is it if you're always just doing nothing! I love doing adrenaline rushing things like going to music shows and death-defying stunts! Actually, i'm kidding. I haven't done anything too crazy lately, but I still want to go skydiving really bad!

With all the little things I like to do, I love shopping and music and the internet and art and mainly photography. I've always wanted to have my own little business on the side just to be able to earn money for fun. It's a beautiful art of making everything appealing.  And also, I love traveling. My dream is just go everywhere and see everything before I go. That would make a nice life for me.

Where Does One Find the "Home, Sweet Home"?

Did you grow up in the same town your whole life and have had the same friends since Kindergarten? What if you didn’t? Maybe you were like me and have never felt that feeling of having that one solid resting place where in your dreams you imagine that after being away for a long while, returning there sounds like Heaven.

But also, what if you were always in a different place and that was your life? Would you feel complete if you were always on the move? For me, that was normal. And it will always be that way. I don’t know what the feeling is like to have grown up in the same town. And now in my present life, it feels bizarre to see people I may not have seen for the past few years. I’m not used to seeing people again.

In fact, I do have one memory of the feeling of home. It was the first town I lived in when I was a kid. I see it sometimes in my dreams and sometimes I imagine what it looks like nowadays. But what is it really that I feel? I guess it could be something like a mixture of admiration and safety. I was only a young girl when I lived there, so all I remember are the memories of playing in the backyard in the tree-fort or of picking rhubarb leaves and using them as umbrellas. Every holiday, every birthday party, even the moments of disputes between siblings that ended in tears and apologies, that was my childhood that I hope to never forget.

But even in a broader sense, what if you were in a place not even on the same continent away from family, friends and your whole way of life? I can relate. For the past year, I lived in France. And what a complete change of living it is over there. Being away from home for awhile is hard enough, but when you add other elements into the stew like: a new language you can’t speak; not knowing a single person you live with; and even looking like the outcast everywhere you go, it gets a little tougher.

Thinking back now to the first day in my new environment, I was too excited and intrigued by my new life to even worry about the difficulty of the trip. But once the shock wore off, I was lost. Crying didn’t seem to help anything, all I wanted was someone to confide in. I thought to myself “why did I choose this? If home is where the heart is, this isn’t home.” But wait, wasn’t this what my whole life has always been like? I knew how to do something like this. So, I worked at it. I learned and I messed up and it was hard. But what if I gave up and never tried to do something different from everyone else and just stayed in the same place that I feel comfortable and safe in? What if I actually didn’t think it was accomplishable and followed the same path and direction that every high school graduate would do? And now today, I’m so happy and thankful I didn’t.

If I had given up in one of my weakest moments on that journey, I would’ve probably given up my whole future in one huge gift-wrapped box. Taking a look at my life now, it is completely changed because of my decision to go out in the world and do something with my life. I chose to make a new home and place my heart there and called it personally my “home, sweet home”. I found my resting place and I always will wonder that if I would have given up and not taken the time to wait out the storm, would I still not have that feeling of finally finding my “home”? To make it easy to understand, it’s like saying I found my soul mate that for the rest of my life I will remember the first, the best, the toughest and the greatest moments of the relationship that either made me cry or smile. I found that place that was perfect for me.

I never thought world-travel would be my love and addiction. I would feel incomplete without seeing all those wonders of the world by the end of my life. But what about all those people who still can’t get out of their same hometown? Think about all the things they’re missing because of the fear of being away from that security. What if I could get people to look above the fences that surround the circumference of their property – the property they work so hard to maintain - and have them look at the big picture. We live in a great big world full of people and cultures. It’s not just the Americans and then the rest of the world. To be in a different country where you can look back at your home and see it in different eyes is like seeing the back of your own head. Not only does that open your eyes, but also your mind. Finally seeing the other side of life that you were never able to see before.

But what does it take to finally see that? You won’t ever be able to see the whole big scheme of things when you worry about the small details. I used to be exactly like that, and I had lots of friends that were the same way and we loved each other. But when I chose to live a more openly lifestyle, I lost a lot of relationships. But think about it, the world needs to have more productive people that can help the development than tear it down.

Imagine a world where the people don’t just live in their own little bubble, but see the world as one big bubble where everyone is the same. We shouldn’t hold ourselves back and keep ourselves hidden away in our comfort zone where we know we are safe in our habitual ways. We need to go out, see what there is offered for us and take our chances with life and find out where it will take us. So forget where you came from and look to where you are going.