Wandering Light

Well...

How to even begin? For a variety of reasons that I'll explain later, five of us have "parted ways" with our volunteer program. We weren't exactly planning on it, but weren't exactly devastated by the news either. I think it really was for the best, although it certainly would have been easier to stay.

Still, easy isn't what I want out of life. Easy and comfortable don't move me forward, don't push me to my limits, don't aid in my growth as a human being. I need more. I need adventure and fear and life defining choices. I need to be brave and strong and independent. I need to let go of myself in order to find myself, to discover exactly what I'm capable of.

Which works out well, considering I'm currently aimlessly wandering around India. I'm living with three of my friends at the moment in Bhagsu, although in a few weeks, two of them are leaving to become monks and the other to do a meditation retreat. I still have no idea what I'll do or where I'll go from here, but I'm really enjoying dwelling in the endless possibilities I have before me. I'd rather be wandering with uncertainty than stagnant with contentment. I'd rather be here, feeling daring and wild and free, than being looked after and lead around. I'm in India. I'm free.

I haven't shaved my legs since I've been here - seven weeks now - and I'm not planning to until I get home. I love the way it feels, not so much the hair itself, but the freedom to look and feel and act any way that I please. I'm free from judgment. I'm free to just exist. I'm free to just be me, whoever that is, whoever I choose it to be. I love this place, but more than that, I love who I am here.

I'm in a town brimming over with British and Israeli hippies, and for the first time, I feel genuinely at peace with everything and everyone, especially myself. Each day I go and sit upon a cliff overlooking a gorgeous valley and write. Each day I leave and return to one of many small restaurants where I sit barefoot on the floor beneath a canopy and observe the world around me. Each day I feel more and more like the person I've always longed to be, living the life I've always longed to live.

I used to believe that I loved people, but it's so much more than that. I love people, but not just the ones I've met. I love every person, every object, every feeling, every grain of sand and every burning star. I love life, but not just mine. I love the earth for being alive, and for being the keeper of so many living things, and so many non-living things, and so many things lingering in between. I love my existence, but more than that, I love all of existence. I love being a part of it.

I am consumed with a kind of love and gratitude I've never felt before. How can I even begin to explain it? It feels like a light, burning at the very center of me, pulsing and expanding and pouring through every inch of me like some unstoppable force. And when I smile, that's the light pushing through. And when I cry, my tears act as tiny prisms, dripping with light, casting rainbows across my face. And when I laugh, that's the light spontaneously bursting within me, erupting into the universe to resonate in the abyss.

That's what it feels like to be me, or at least, that's the best I can explain it. So, who am I today wandering aimlessly around India? Today I am a light, a fire, an explosion of joy. Today I burn with love and life and the enchanting potential for more. Today I am my favorite version of me as I wonder and wander through the world, smiling all the way.

Always a smile. Always optimistic. Always light in the dark. Always me, through good times and bad, always, always me. And I laugh, and I laugh, and I laugh, because I wouldn't want it any other way.