The blog post I was going to write today was originally going to be something completely different. This morning I woke up and started having deep thoughts about the little moments many overlook in life. We, as humans, can get so caught up in our current life and then miss all the precious times we should stop and take a second to cherish. Many believe that these moments only happen on their vacations or travel adventures. I am sure these moments become more noticeable while on vacation because the immediate distractions become temporarily removed, but you can find these moments in everyday life as well.
Have you ever stood in the rain on a warm day and let it run over your skin without the fear of getting wet? Or walked through the forest on a cool autumn morning breathing in the fresh air as the leaves slowly changed colors around you? What about looking at a stranger in the park and feeling their contagious smile suddenly show up on your face? These are the moments in my life that I recognize are meaningful to me. Yours might be different, but that sensation of bliss inside your heart remains the same.
For those who still don't understand, let me tell you a story of the rediscovery of one's self.
There once was a girl. She let her decisions in life define who she was. She got fantastic grades, played a sport she didn't necessarily enjoy but knew that her family was proud of her for, and made every decision based on logic and reality. On the outside, she looked happy. She looked like she had it all. She had the perfect boyfriend, intelligence, the colleges recruiting her for her athleticism, and a well-known family that loved and supported her all the way. But what people didn't notice was that she was slowly dying inside. She would lock herself in her room to escape her overly pressured life and watch her favorite tv shows. Continually, kicking out any family member that walked in during those crucial tv moments that made a series great. She was slowly losing herself and not in control of where her life was heading.
She graduated from high school. She committed to a very athletic college in New York for ice hockey. Ended things with the boy who broke her heart, and continued to live the day-by-day, one day at a time. She never stopped for a second. Never took a breath. Just kept working hard, kept telling herself this is what she wanted, but her heart ached to be understood. As days turned into years, she just kept losing herself more and more. She became bitter, mean, and barely genuinely smiled anymore. She was accustomed to acting happy in front of others that no one questioned anything. She would have constant thoughts about how this could not be how life was supposed to be lived. She knew something was wrong, but she did not know how to escape her life and start over.
Eventually, she had neglected her mental health for so long she resorted to numbing the pain. She could get through the pain and keep living her everyday life if she couldn't feel it. Her mind shut down, and she did not cry for over a year. She couldn't feel any emotion, which would frighten her, but she was still getting good grades, trying hard at her sport, and being the dutiful daughter and sibling she had always been.
Then one day, she snapped. While talking to some friends, she felt an overpowering emotion overcome her. Then the tears came. The feelings she had neglected for years had returned to her. She spent what felt like hours in the arms of her friends as they all cried together. She finally talked to someone about how she felt. Where her life was heading, and she wanted to change it but didn't know how. That is when she felt her first relaxing moment of bliss. She peered into the faces of her friends and was only met with love and acceptance. In her darkest moment, it was there, that moment of complete bliss and relief.
As days passed, she wondered how she could feel it again? What was it? Why had she not felt it before? She read books on self-help and about moments in people's lives, searching for the answer, but never came across the correct one. What generated that feeling inside her? She had more questions than answers, but all she knew was she had to feel it again.
Within her quest of exploration, she decided to up-route her life and start over. After brainstorming for weeks about what to do to change her tiresome life, there was only one answer. Start over completely. She quit her sport after her second year in college and transferred to a school down in the south, far away from home, to gain some perspective. At the time, she did not know that this was the most important decision she had ever made, but she would soon come to learn.
Still, she had not felt that bliss again. She questioned whether she was doing to right thing over and over again countless amounts of time. Would this lead her in the right direction? Is she wasting her time? What if I never felt that bliss again? Was it a one-time thing?
The day finally came where she had to leave for school. She had her car packed and started driving the eighteen long hours down south. She did what she always did. Put music on in the car. What was this? She was smiling. A smile. A simple gesture to show one is happy or to fake that one is happy. She knew the fake smile all too well, but this smile was different. She peered at herself in the rearview mirror and noticed her eyes. They were smiling along with her. A tear escaped her eye as her chest began to swell with the feeling she had felt months prior. There it was! The feeling! How did she do that? What triggered it? How was this moment any more special than others? For the rest of the eighteen hours, she continued to ponder those questions as she sang along to her music in the car.
Once she reached her destination of Savannah, Georgia, and said her goodbyes to her family, she was alone. She did not know anyone or anything about the area. She decided to go for a long walk around the city. She turned out of her downtown apartment and started walking slowly along the brick sidewalks. Each brick different than the next, or even slightly damaged. She chuckled and realized the bricks were like people. Everyone is different, some more damaged than others, but none that were unfixable. She walked longer and took in her surroundings while breathing in the humid September air along with scents from the passing restaurants. The historic buildings, towering above her with a beauty she had never recognized before. A quaint, delicacy applied to each building with care and attention to preserve. She stopped in one of the famous squares and looked around her. Each historic building was like herself. With love and attention to her flaws, she would be able to stand tall for a long time.
A warm rain began to fall at that moment, and the water hit her skin and started to dampen her clothes. She wasn't cold. She felt as if the sky had finally been able to relieve itself, like her soul. She closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the sky. She let the rain hit her face, one bead at a time. The water, quickly gaining momentum and soaking her long hair and clothes. She continued to stand there, breathing in the moment of content. The feeling had returned to her. The bliss she had been searching for. The euphoria she had been chasing after. She knew, at that moment, she made the right choices to uproot her life and start over. All her doubts erased from her mind. She finally was on the right path to finding herself again.
As the years continued, she found it easier to find that feeling within her everyday life. She was no longer living blind. She had been able to erase the distractions of the trivial, and recognize the moments in her life that matter the most. The feeling would return to her a lot more often than she thought possible. Whenever a new boy made her heart flutter for the first time, or when her friends would turn to her for advice. Moments where she walked the beach alone, or when she shared a bottle of wine with her best friend and got a little too intoxicated. When she went dancing with the girls, when she would read a good book on a rainy day, when she would complete a new drawing for class, and when she was able to travel to new countries and write about it in her blog. The feeling never happened when she got a lot of money, new material things, or promotions. She was proud during all those moments, but her moments of bliss, her more significant life moments were the little things.
Now when I reflect on that girl, I realize what she was missing in her life at the time. Knowledge of herself. Knowledge of what she enjoyed, who she was, what she should, and would care about. I was able to identify her mistakes early on. I was able to do this by analyzing and asking lots of inner, deeper questions. There always is an aspect of life where people are searching for something. Even now, I am searching for the next time to feel my inner bliss with life. I currently experience it most when I travel and experience new things and share them with my readers, but that doesn't mean I don't feel it when I am stuck at home. Sometimes it's sensed within a song I hear, or when I witness a little girl meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time. This feeling can be all around you if you are open to the possibilities of what life has to offer and reflect within yourself what it personal and meaningful to you.
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