Leap

For me, the journey always seems to begin herky-jerky, like letting off a clutch too hard and popping out into the intersection for a left turn with your right blinker on.  It’s beginning to be so common, in fact that I’ve started to look forward to the tense muscles and the belly flutter of panic that precedes the green light.  Anticipation.

As uncomfortable and hair-raising as it is to start the journey, it must begin somewhere. 

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” -Lao-tzu

So, I put in four weeks notice at my job.  My last day will be April 28.  I’ve begun making plans to set out on an adventure.  I’m not exactly sure where I’m going, what I’ll find or where I’ll end up. 

I oscillate between feeling adventurous and empowered to terrified and chaotic.  This is to be expected, and while I’m fully aware of this – it doesn’t stop me from crying, then laughing hysterically, then pacing the floor, then inhaling a bowl of chocolate ice cream whereupon the entire cycle starts all over.

All weekend I wondered if it was too late to retract my resignation.  But each morning I woke up thinking – but if I retract my resignation… will I ever see Denali, Loch Ness, New Zealand?  Will I ever light a fire under myself and write and live and be what I’ve always dreamed of being? Or will I cozy into my office chair, file statements and type letters and answer phones with barely contained hostility for the next five years before I fall into a rut of acceptance and convince myself that this is as good as it will ever get.

I want to know if I can survive and thrive by being what I feel I am inside.  I want to cultivate my creativity, explore my world, meet my fellow travelers on the great journey, have tea in a tree house with a stylish cross dresser- and dance naked in the Amazon.  If I can’t do all that I dream, wish or yearn for… my next best option is to bust ass trying, so when all is said and done and my final laugh joins the collective – it will be a laugh that says, “But I died trying.  I did not surrender – come here Death, so that I might kick you in your shin!”

So, yeah.  That’s the gist of it. 

All this passion running acidic in my body, who knows what will come of it.  It comes down to faith and foolishness – perhaps they are the same thing but whatever, I have lots of both, well, more foolishness than faith likely.  Anyhow – the hardest part is done, making the decision that it’s time to let go, it’s time to leap.

I’ve given myself the green light.

It’s time to pop the clutch and bounce into the intersection – pick a direction and see where it goes…

Here’s to the journey – and all the fear, excitement, power, experience and beauty that journey to the unknown implies.

Happy Trails

-Athena