A New Start

When I think back to the last couple of years of my life, I probably couldn't count the number of times I've "started over" on both hands. I always used to think of my life as a book... with chapters lived out from beginning to end, all neat and organized. After the college chapter was over, I imagined a "first apartment" type chapter, a "grad school" chapter, promptly followed by happy chapters like "She starts the Opera career of her dreams" and "happily ever after with Prince Charming". Maybe life turns out like that for some people, but that is certainly not the way my life after college turned out. I never expected the chapters of my life to include things like "rape" or "divorce" or "the second time my house burned down". Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be poor me or give excuses for why I am not yet living happily ever after. I'm just saying that life takes us on a journey we never expected.

I am actually really glad that my life didn't turn out the way I had planned. I might have never met G, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to appreciate our love the way I do now. Because of all that I've been through in the eight years since college, I have found new goals, true love, and a chance to be a writer. I can still see ways that my life could be separated into "chapters", but maybe not so neat or easy as I once thought. Maybe the last four years of my life before I met G would be a chapter called "bad decisions". Even so, I know that I have found a new start here in a new city, with a new love that is finally what I want and need, and a new career that I am excited about. I know that I have tried to start over so many times with a new attitude and a new me, but this feels different. I am being honest with myself about my laziness and my weaknesses, but I am also giving myself little pep talks about how amazing I know I am deep down inside. I am going to try to wake up every day and see it as a new start, a new chance to accomplish what I want, a new chance to love and be happy. Maybe we have more control sometimes over the names of our life's chapters. If so, I am calling this next chapter "Finding Joy".