a new life

I have neglected words for far too long. 

I have turned my back on dusty journals crammed somewhere in a brightly colored box in a carefully cluttered apartment. I’ve walked by them and felt the twinge of guilt that comes from realizing how many memories I’ve left unwritten. I’ve heard their siren call from the confines of my closet and put a pillow over my ears to drown out the sound. The haunting melody that is the stories of my life.

I have deliberatley abandoned the powerful feeling of my fingers marching their way accross the keyboard. Weaving stories of love and loss and lessons learned.

I have let life sweep me away willing, allowing myself to get lost in the ebb and flow of the mundane. The normal. The predictable wackiness that I owe it to myself to document because every second of it is oh so beautiful. Every feeling, every experience, every moment deserves its place in my tattered journals. 

On my poor, rambling blog. 

But why is it when we need words the most, they seem to escape us?

Or is it us, escaping them. 

Filling our mondays and tuesdays and wednesdays with the same simple tasks, promising ourselves we will return to our words tomorrow. Next week. Eventually. 

Perhaps it is because sometimes, our words are too powerful. 

They strike a fear in us that we run from with a determination we didnt know we had. 

Words can lead us to a place we would rather neglect. 

An eden of emotion, 

A paradise of inner contradictions and heartaches and feelings that are messy. 

Sticky, toxic, dangerous.

Terrifying. 

I don’t want to run anymore.

I want to find my words again

Living in the now.

It’s the start of a new year and everyone is promising to change.

Swearing this year they’ll lose those ten pounds. quit their smoking habit. turn their life around.

THIS year, they will become the person they were meant to be.

And this time next year, they will be looking back. Wondering what the hell happened. Wondering where they went wrong. Wondering how those 365 days seemed to slip through their fingers like strands of silk. So quickly and beautifully that they never even knew that they once held change in their grasp with an iron tight fist fueled by determination and the fallout of past mistakes.

This year, I will not swear to change.

I will swear to live.

I will swear to embrace this new year and its 365 days ahead with a bold passion that gets lost in the hum drum of everyday life. I will swear to never stop looking at all that I have and being amazed. I will swear to do everything in my power to cross off those 100 things on my list of things to do before I die- because any one of these 365 days could be our last. And what a shame to leave this wonderful world without feeling mountains beneath my feet or twirling in circles on the hills of Ireland. Laughing without restraint and learning to play the piano. Loving as fully and fiercely as I can, and letting go of the past.

So when I found you at midnight in that crowded living room, sorrounded by pretty lights and sweaty faces and the smell of spilled champagne, I took your scruffy face in my hands and kissed you with my eyes wide open. Because I didn’t want to miss a second of this new year with you.