Inspired

Last night I had a mini-meltdown. Time is moving and I'm not moving with it. I was completely honest with myself and I realized I am terrified. I'm at this point in my life where I don't have a plan. I've always had some kind of plan - get through high school, go on to university, move to Japan, get married... And now I feel like I'm standing on the edge of the rest of my life and I'm scared to take the next step. Where will it take me? Will I fall down the cliff?

I reflected and asked what it was that made me so scared. I'm scared that I'm nothing special. That I'm just a normal girl who has the ability to write but has nothing to say. Why would anyone want to read what I write? What do I have to say? I feel like when people read my words, they can see through me. They can see I'm an unoriginal fraud.

I've always said that I'm "finding myself." What does that mean? Am I already formed and I just need to cut through all the foggy bullshit and boom! "Ahhh, there I am! I was looking for me!" Thinking that I'm "finding" myself is what makes me a fraud because I'm not taking responsibility for who I am. Instead, I realize that I'm still growing. I'm exploring what I love and what I don't. I'm so proud of the person I've become in the past few years. I feel like I've grown up so much in the last two years and I realize now that it's not because I've "found" myself - it's because I've created the person I want to be.

And though I've grown and changed in the past couple of years, I know this is the person I'm meant to be. And I know I will continue to grow and my experiences will change me into a person I hope know will be even more amazing.

What do I want? I want a family. I want babies and children. More than that, I want to raise my children. That's what I'm excited about. I want to be there to form them, let them be everything that I wasn't, let them feel love the way I did - and still do - from those I'm lucky enough to call my family. But I know I have some work to do before I get there. It's not that I'm not ambitious, it's not that I don't dream of a career, it's not that I don't dream of being successful. It's just that right now, at 27 years old, my career feels like it's just a means to an end. It's not the end.

I'm just scared. And when I get scared, I pull back. Instead of allowing myself to reach and soar and - yes - fail, I cower. But I know that I am not that person. I am not a coward. I am not a fraud. I'm not done.

So it's time. It's time to let go of my fears and make them curiosities. It's time I stopped holding myself back. Because I know I have people in my corner. I know I have people who support me. I have people who believe in me. They believe I am capable of anything and everything. It's time I started believing it, too.

It's not going to be easy and it's going to take time. But I'm not allowing myself to be terrified any more - because I can't be terrified of something if I'm not willing to go for with everything that I have am.

Here we go...