June 23rd
I am practicing writing.
I don’t think many people (if ANY people) actually read what I have on here. So I will be personally using this space to challenge myself to freely write what is going on in this noggin of mine.
The most exciting news at the moment is that I am applying for grad school. (Hence the need to practice writing!) I had to submit a writing sample from my undergrad as part of the application, and WOW was I embarrassed. Why, of all of the topics and prompts to write about, did Brianna of 2013 choose to write about a lousy two and a half page paper on Diarrheal Disease? Oy. My life.
I also signed up for a triathlon! I am very thankful for my friend, Jessica Jin, for encouraging me to just pull the trigger on doing it! It has always been a goal of mine to do one. My weakness is definitely going to be the running portion, especially because it is right at the end. I have been enjoying my runs around the neighborhood. It’s truly amazing how far you can go by simply putting one foot in front of the other.
I am proud of myself for continuing to seek challenges. What a strange year it has been. Pandemic. Lock down. Moving back to California. Relationships ending. Reuniting with old friends. Dancing. Always dancing. Turning 30. The song that has been my anthem these days is “True To Your Heart” by 98 degrees. “What is true for me?” is a question I keep asking myself when I mediate every morning. If the place deep down in my gut speaks, I listen and take action. Even if my amygdala gets activated. (Get it? Nerd joke- because the amygdala is the thing that gets activated when we feel fear. That’s something interesting right there… Fear is nothing but a stimulated amygdala!)
I am facing so much imposter syndrome around applying to grad school and doing this triathlon. But at the same time, I am stepping into a way of being. One that is still powerful and positive and me, but in a new way. I am reading the book “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle, and she speaks so eloquently and clear about this. This act of becoming someone new.
“Destruction is essential to construction… We are alive only to the degree in which we are willing to be annihilated. Our new life will always cost us the first one. If we are truly alive, we are constantly losing who we just were, what we just built, what we just believed, what we just knew to be true.” (pg 73-75)
She continues:
“I am a human being, meant to be in perpetual becoming. If I am living bravely, my entire life will become a million deaths and rebirths. My goal is not to remain the same but to live in such a way that each day, year, moment, relationship, conversation, and crisis is the material I use to become a truer, more beautiful version of myself. The goal is to surrender, constantly, who I just was in order to become who this next moment calls me to be.
I will not hold on to a single existing idea, opinion, identity, story, or relationship that keeps me from emerging new. I cannot hold too tightly to any riverbank. I must let go of the shore in order to travel deeper and see farther. Again and again and then again. Until the final death and rebirth. Right up until then.” (pg 77)
Let the destruction and construction begin. I think it would be really cool to look back 30 years from now and not even recognize the human I was. If I was told I was going to die in a year, I would be sad only for the fact that there are so many things I haven't learned or done yet. If I really want to make a difference in curing cancer, NOW is the time. If I really want to dance and make meaningful work, NOW is the time. If I really want to make an impact in my community, inspire kids to dance, and heal the world, the only time I have is now.