I’m wide awake
Not losing any sleep
Picked up every piece
And landed on my feet
I’m wide awake
Need nothing to complete myself, no
~ Katy Perry
Sometimes it takes getting lost to be found. Sometimes it takes having your world pull the rug out from under you to find your strength. Sometimes, you have to have your eyes opened for you, and make the hard choices, and walk the train tracks alone in order to one day catch the hand you’re supposed to hold again.
Nothing in this life is simple. But I’m coming to the conclusion that it isn’t meant to be. I am coming to the realization that while there are so many things, and people, worth fighting for, you can’t fight that battle for someone else, you can’t hold someone else’s sword. Stand at their side yes, give them aid, support, even instruction, but you can’t walk into the trenches for them. And the more you try, the more pain you’re going to find yourself in, the more lost you will become. That is not to say that you shouldn’t fight at all, that’s not to say that you should do everything you can to protect your own, and to save what you think is worth saving. But you must accept your own bravery, and find your own courage, even if the consequences of that courage take you on a different path than you perhaps hoped, or perhaps expected.
Only you can choose your path. No matter how much someone else loves you, they can’t make that choice for you. Take advice, take love, take care, but make the choice on your own, walk it with confidence, and accept the outcome of your choice, no matter what it may be; make that decision when the time comes. Don’t try and protect the future when it hasn’t happened yet, and don’t try and predict it either. Anyone who tells you they have that ability perfected is lying to you or selling something.
You are in control of your destiny. Your fate is shaped by your own choices no one else’s. You are the sum of your choices, and your memories.
There are those that say that people can’t change. I am not one of those people. I think anyone can change, if they truly want to, but they have to want to. You cannot change, you cannot grow, if you harbour a seed within yourself that thinks it’s the rest of the world that needs to change not you. You cannot change if you resent.
So no, nothing in this life is simple. Life is extremely complicated, and messy, and painful and joyous and it’s all about what you focus on. A rich man may turn up his nose at the wrong kind of caviar, and yet a waitress living paycheque to paycheque or worse will go to sleep grateful that she was able to afford to treat herself to ice cream and a roof over her head.
Choices, cause and effect, it all comes down to the same thing.
And when you think you’ve come to the end of your path, take a long hard look; you’ll find there’s a fork in the road. There’s a way around. It may not be the way you want, it may not be the one you hoped for, but there will always be a way. Keep your eyes on the long game, keep your eyes on the horizon, let that pull you forward.
Let yourself be brave.
Let yourself be scared.
Realize that you can be both.
Draw your lines in the sand and stand by them, but be kind to those who may not be aware of them.
Put in the work to build the bridges you need, find others to work alongside you, but always accept your share.
And above all remember that the happy ending can’t come in the middle of the story…and no matter how lost you are, no one stays lost forever.
Close your eyes and fold your hands my friends, it really is all gonna be alright…one way or another, it’s always all gonna be alright.