I’m usually pretty good at just clearing all the random stuff out of my mind and just enjoying the only quiet moments in my day, but today I was just awful. I was thinking of things that had happened and things I wanted to say to people and whether I was going to get a pedicure or not. It was kind of stressful, and on top of that I felt guilty for thinking of all this random stuff, because I’m an expert at feeling guilty.

So I pulled it together and said, “It doesn’t matter, let all of that go, and just be here.” And I felt a sort of whoooosh.

The only time that it’s possible to feel joy and eternity is in the present moment. You can’t feel joy when you’re focused on the past, and you can’t feel it when you’re planning for or worrying about the future. Joy comes when you’re not thinking of anything but NOW. When I’m in that present moment and not giving a thought to before or later on, those are the moments where I kind of feel the boundaries of my body dissolve, and I just become part of this whole-universe sized whooooosh that is pure love and joy.

Then once I feel it I get really excited and try to hold on to it, which gets me stuck in the past moment instead of the present one, but that’s ok. I feel like this is a really good discovery for me. I like to understand how things work and why I feel the way I feel and what makes things happen. And the fact that joy only happens when my mind is the present is a great motivation to spend more time there and to stop worrying about things that are over or haven’t happened yet.

It’s exciting

Usually, when I’m really happy, I tend to want to sing really really loud. Ususally my happiness way overpowers my voice and the singing just can’t keep up. Knock on wood, but I have actually felt wildly better for the past three days, and today…my voice is keeping up with my joy. Both are HUGE and glorious.

Something that people always say about me is that I am always smiling. Today someone asked me why I always smiled, and I didn’t really know what to say. I’m not sure why I do it. Is it a front that I put on to make other people feel good regardless of how I feel? Or am I just a really happy person? I’m not sure, but I think I’m going to think about it more and figure out exactly why I smile so much.

And then today, I want over to Folly Beach, which is kind of a long drive for me, but I really wanted to try to get some good pictures of the pier, which is really really long. I was a little nervous when I got there because it was overcast and the sun was only peeping out for a few minutes at a time, but the clouds ended up serving me well:

I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to live without a beach again. The water is just too beautiful. The beach has such a great personality, and I always come away feeling like a serene and small but beautiful part of the universe.

So, I’m going to take this moment to admit that yesterday, after a really long time trying to toilet train my cats, I gave up. I wanted my toilet back.

They balked at the idea of peeing into a bowl of water, which replaced the bowl of litter I’ve had sitting inside my toilet for the past several weeks. Divas.

And I decided that I actually never want to have to share my toilet with two cats. I’ll get organic litter to lessen my guilt, but I just can’t toilet train my cats. They won the battle, I admit it.

In other news, I am experiencing this fun feeling, where I feel like happiness and peace have been sitting outside my door and knocking and I’ve been afraid to open it. And I finally had the courage to open it, and I found them waiting there. It feels really really really good.

And yesterday I found a monthly horoscope that said “The 30th proves to be a marvelous day.” So I was like, sweet! I’m gonna win the lottery or someone is gonna do something really nice for me out of nowhere that is going to change my life.

So yesterday I knew I had to get ready for this awesome life change. I thought really hard and made a list of things that I needed to get taken care of and out of the way, and I did them. Some really big things that I’ve been avoiding and waiting to do for a loooong time. And all day today, I was on the lookout for a really great thing to make its appearance. By 3 or 4 in the afternoon, I started feeling like maybe it wasn’t coming and I better get used the fact that maybe today wasn’t going to be marvelous.

Epiphany Moment:

I had already done all of the marvelousness myself. I had stepped in and made the changes in my life that turned over a new page and made room for new and better things in my life. I think that I spend a lot of time expecting the marvelousness to come from outside sources and not really noticing or giving myself credit for creating it in my own life. And since I expect it to come from the outside, I don’t really bother to try to be marvelous for my own self.

And so I just wanted to commemorate this day, September 30th, as a turning point in my life (dun dun dun!). I am taking responsibility for my own happiness and committing to creating it for myself. And I really believe that I will look back on this day and marvel at my courage and ability to stand up for myself and begin to only allow the best things that i can find into my life. I made this day be the first day of the rest of my life, as corny as that phrase is.

So that is marvelous.

And to top it off, here is a marvelous picture that I took tonight downtown, in the middle of Unity Alley between East Bay Street and the other street that I don’t know the name of that is parallel to East Bay Street:

Besides that, it was my first time at the beach since all the tourists left, and so it was gloriously isolated and deserted, which is the best kind of way for beaches to be. Being on a beach with no one else around really makes me feel like part of the hugeness and eternal-ness of the world, just a little piece that fits in and moves along with it all.

I went planning to take a bunch of pictures with my new camera, but of course I realized that I had left the battery at home once I was there, so Internet world I’m sorry that you missed out on a spectacular night, including THREE rainbows. No joke.

So instead I just walked and reflected. It really makes me feel peaceful to know that those tides have been coming in and out and in and out for thousands of years or however long, and that even though no two waves are the same there is an overriding consistency to their existence in spite of minute details and variety. Life goes on. And it’s still beautiful, but it is always different and changing. You can’t fight the tide, it’s gonna go out no matter what, but then it always comes back in later on.

I feel like every life experience I’ve had since I moved here is personified by the beach and the water and the tides and waves. It’s kind of the same feeling you get when you meet a person who shares your opinions or ideas – that feeling that you’re not alone. When I go to the ocean, I feel like it mirrors my emotions. It makes me feel like there are larger patterns at play and I am just repeating them on a smaller scale. And because the waves keep moving and the tide keeps flowing, my life will, too.

I also like the beach because there are angels everywhere, if you take the time to look for them:

See those little seashell wings?

Om Namah Shivaya. Greetings to that which I have the potential to become.

“Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.”   ~Judy Garland

Smile! It actually tricks your brain into thinking you’re happy, and then you actually become happy! Reverse magic!

Maybe being sick isn’t the culmination of doing a lot of things wrong; maybe it’s a time of emotional detoxifcation and renewal and getting rid of things you don’t need anymore.

I haven’t allowed myself to be an artist in a long time, and now I’m going to do it!  I’m going to sing and act and take pictures and paint pictures and see beauty everywhere and live in those moments that remind me of God.

A couple more that I forgot I’d written down, sadly I didn’t write down where I got them from:

Going same means that we stop enabling insanity with rationalizations, denials, wishful thinking, and misplaced hopes in someone or something outside ourselves.

Accept what comes to you totally and completely so you can appreciate it, learn from it, and let it go.

Dharma is destiny without any hint of compulsion or force. It is the path of least resistance – it brings the greatest fulfilment and happiness. (Kind of like that wave thing I wrote about a few days ago)

All of this is adding up in my head and making me feel like I am finally getting to meet the adult me that’s been growing behind the scenes. I think a few months ago I felt like I was stuck in a waiting period and I wasn’t sure what was coming next, but now I’m realizing that I was just waiting at the starting line, and now I’ve taken off

What can I say to follow that? At a time when I’m not really sure who I am or where I’m going or what I want, I can look into the future and know that the self I will become is out there, and I can talk to it! What’s up, awesome me? So there is a light at the end of this tunnel? That’s a relief.

So that made me bounce out of yoga inspired to start fulfilling that potential right away.

In fact, I’m going to go get my creative juices flowing and take some pictures of an awesome street I drove down last night in downtown Charleston. I did take one fun picture last night and here it is:

I am still a full-on tourist in Charleston, and I am absolutely one of those people who walks around looking up at the tops of buildings and almost bumping into things and people as a result. But if I didn’t look up, I wouldn’t have seen that picture, so.

I mean seriously, when do both sides snap in one day? Another victim of the Georgia-South Carolina game, along with my health. But it was ALL worth it, because we WON!

Today during my second class, the instructor, Ashley, talked about this beautiful image that really hit home for me, so I want to share it and write it down so that I can come back to it. This is going to have to be paraphrased, but here it is:

You know the feeling when you’re in the ocean and a huge wave crashes over you? It’s tempting to fight it and try to swim through it to the surface, but sometimes it feels like no matter how hard you struggle and swim you can come out to the surface. You start to panic. Finally finally finally you come up out of the water completely exhausted and you have to get out of the water and go recover, because you have salt water up your nose and that’s miserable (that part is my own). But after you’ve gone through that a couple of times, you figure out to relax, and just let the wave carry you. In a few seconds, it’s all over and you come out and breathe.

Life is the same way. When a wave crashes, you can fight it and fight it, but it’s going to rock you and terrify you and you’ll feel like you’re drowning. Or you can relax, and not fight it, but let the wave carry you. Yes, it is going to move you, and you won’t know where you’re going to end up. But you’ll come out faster and painlessly.

There have been waves in my life that I’ve been fighting for months, if not years. I am exhausted and I don’t have any resistance left. It is seriously time for me to trust that if I let the wave take me, I’ll come back up to the surface. I have to stop wasting time. I really want to make it to the surface.

I believe that the universe really know’s what’s up, and is doing everything right. I don’t know what works and what doesn’t better than that great awareness. I think that my whole life I’ve believed that fighting for what you want was the way to go, but maybe what I think I want isn’t what is the best thing. Or maybe I have things to learn before I can get those things. But for now, I am going to focus on relaxing, and letting the waves take me.