.the choices we make.

How will life change you? How do you allow life to change you?

I am an impulsive Aries. I love distractions and my strengths lie in changeability. I have a tendency  to do things for the challenge/adventure of it. i.e. I decided to go wherever the US gov't offered to fly me and live there for 2 years. Then when life became day-to-day I decided to once again get on the government funded airplane adventure and go, despite it all. The choice to get on the airplane forever changed my life.

Everything changes everything. I believe that what I do today will change tomorrow, even in a micro way. It is a step on the journey but going to Africa was a leap. It forever changed me. Because it was Africa, because of the time, because of the way I leaped, because of the way I opened myself up, because of the way it healed me and made me raw, because of the way it distanced me from my "world", because of the quiet moments, because of the deviation.

I left because I didn't want to sit in the here and now. I left because I wanted a rush. I left because I wanted to never regret. I left because I was fearful of not going and fearful of staying. I never thought about who I would become and the distance it would place between me and everything I had known.

This knowledge is neither left or right but simply my story. A detail of the story with a lot of discovery that I am only starting to comprehend.

How will life change you? How do you allow life to change you?

.weary strength.

last night i cried. a hard cry. i haven't cried for a while (or at least since I hugged my sister goodbye on the crib in front of the airport in my pajamas). my emotions have been sitting heavy on me these past days. i cried to let it all out. i cried even past the point of thinking i shouldn't be crying anymore.

birthing the acknowledgement of loss (of things of which I have been in denial for a while).
the frustration (that things are/and will continue to constantly change and in ways i don't understand or like).
the confusion (of making a big decision and realizing that it isn't all i thought it would be).
the complexity (of life that nothing is yes or no but more a hope and a gamble).
the loneliness (of forging ahead without my pillars and trying not to look back).

and i woke up this morning calm.
reinvigorated.
strong in myself.
confident in my abilities.
despite all those heavy emotions still very much alive and thriving inside of me.

but i realized that in these transitions, births, moments of facing the now - there is great beauty in my ability to shine. that moments of weariness will become my moments of strength.

mantra:

i don't need the answer right now.
i don't need to figure it out.
i don't need to smile it away.
just breathe.

.the fourth.

happy late 4th of july. 

i took this holiday to take time to celebrate the freedoms of my life - reacquainting myself with what has been and what really is - asking the hard questions - consciously investing in what is true - evaluating the choices that i am making - the opportunities present - the new voice i am finding inside - the confidence to say what i want/feel/am - the awareness of self that has seemed to bloom inside of me this year - the ever evolving me.

i had such a summer weekend.

full of sunshine - bike rides with my favorite biking buddy - mid-morning cappuccinos - afternoons filled with public pool swimming/picnics - evening dining on patios - all topped off with a twilight criterium (the sound of cowbells are still ringing in my ears).

this weekend reminded me "that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" a common theme in my life. i have freedom - nothing left to lose. i'm in the transition of letting go of all that i'm "losing" - the truths that once were might not be true - not in a false sense but in the way that life is moving and the scenery around me is changing. 

big changes are coming my way. i'm at a crossroads to lose it all or find the greatest freedom. which is the same thing, it all on perspective. 

how will i choose to look at it? 

there is so much freedom in today. 
it's mind over matter. 
it's taking things slow. 
it's being present. 

are you finding freedom or loss in your life?

.365 days ago.

"Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that's 
the one that is going to require the most from you." 

- Caroline Myss

One year ago today I was already setting off while those familiar warm fuzzy stomach jitters were setting in, Wenatchee to Seattle, Seattle to New York, New York to Jo-burg, Jo-burg to Lilongwe. I landed 48 hours later disoriented sweaty confused with no luggage to call my own. The birth of Malawi to my life was a groggy moment, with a weary heart and heavy eyelids my mind was racing to understand the local cyclist racing past the car with loads (i.e. goats rodeo tied with their heads bobbing up and down on the bike rack) heavier and higher than the bike and cyclist combined, mud huts with grass thatched roofs, cars driving on the "wrong" side of road (are we going to wreck?!? does this guy know how to drive?) - it felt like a surreal dream.

Peace Corps staff dropped me off at the hostel (called Korea Gardens. HUH? Where am I?) and said they'd see me in the morning. Alone exhausted disoriented I was left in a hot and murky cement block with a tiny window, this would be my new "home" for the 10 days of orientation. The bathroom was more like a mosquito breeding ground with a toilet in it. The hostel staff was yelling outside the window or maybe they were just talking I couldn't tell. I sat down on the foam pad bed staring at the whitewashed walls, sweat running down my body wondering what have I gotten myself into THIS time?
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Two and a half weeks prior I was sitting on my bed in my big red barn in Arlington talking to my Mom on the phone, it was time to decide yes and give notice to work or say no and let it go. I was ready to let it go - it was too wild - not right - bad timing. But my Mom as she always is in these gut retching decisions I love to put myself in the middle of said, "why wouldn't you go?" so I gave all the typical answers and I said, "Maybe I'm saying from fear that it's not the right time. I almost said no to Ecuador out of fear and I know all the beauty that came from that decision" and she said, "there's your answer" and I (typical Alicia) said, "What? What's my answer?" "you have to go to Malawi to follow your fear".
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And here I am a year later - Malawi wasn't an easy experience it demanded all of me - some days she demanded more that I thought I was capable of giving but from those sweet uncomfortable moments she has made me a more empathic, more vibrant, and vulnerable person.

I'm SO grateful for life - for open opportunities of new growth - for the privilege to have Malawi in my life - for a support network that let's me "figure it out" over and over again - for the chance to live a life that requires the most of me.

I hope that you too are following your fear!