Chapter 2: NYC- The Return: "...joy for the times that are discouraging. hope for a better clarity. perspective to remember what has past. bravery to learn lessons even through fear, and an undying passion for beauty in everything..."

"The trick is the same as before,

Maintain patience for a life to evolve as it's meant too.

Carry an enthusiasm for relationships, an open eye for new encounters,

Keep courage to try new things, 

faith that people are inherently good,

endurance for the parts that seam unbearable..."

To live will be an awfully big adventure. J.M. Barrie

Keep an open mind and an adventurous heart and let life teach you great lessons. To city the that brought me to my knees: you've created a better version of self, inspired hope, and encouraged an endless wanderer.

Oh, I beg you, can I follow?

Oh, I ask you, Why not always?

Be the ocean, where I unravel

Be my only, be the water where I'm wading

You're my river running high, run deep, run wild

I, I follow, I follow you

Deep sea baby, I follow you

I, I follow, I follow you

Dark doom honey, I follow you

He's a message, I'm the runner

He's the rebel, I'm the daughter waiting for you

You're my river running high, run deep, run wild

"In my mind things were so different... It just goes to show life has its own agenda and if you let it...it will make you strong. Beautiful things grow in the face of disappointment. An open heart is just as important as an open mind.I live with no regret. Just patience and understanding for myself as I learn hard lessons and grow to be a better version of myself."

Chapter 2: NYC-The Return

That moment when you're driving down the FDR towards Brooklyn,

on the Willliamsburg Bridge with Manhattan twinkling behind you,

and that feeling that you're finally entering the place that you call home,

and probably always will...

And just for a quick second your body feels tingly and floating,

because everything is the most overwhelming in the best way.

So you can't help but tearing up a little because you know you're in the middle of something so incredible,

and the feeling is pure gratitude

and humility for the great city.

Or that moment you're walking up a crowded 5th Avenue sidewalk,

and people...surrounded, commotion, noises, smells...

but all you can hear is the song that's playing-

archiving the moment...capturing it in ways that words and pictures cannot.

Emphasizing the beauty and enhancing the feelings.

And even though its a sea of strangers,

you've never felt so welcomed, or so at home,

ever in your life.

And that moment when you are standing in the clouds,

looking forward and backwards at the most beautiful city in the world.

And from this perspective, it doesn't look that big.

Just people and places stacked on top of each other.

Isolation and community compacted into a tiny island.

And there are just headlights and taillights illuminating crowded corridors.

And you don't know if you've ever known anything as perfect.

And whether above or below, or next too...

you know you're in it.

And it didn't forget  you,

but rather was waiting there for you as it's always been before.

And even though everything has changed,

really nothing has changed.

And you know you can be the true version of self,

because this place is your happiness,

a finish line at the end of a journey.

And it's accepting of who you were, who you are, and who you will become. 

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Its always so hard to put words down on a page,

to try to explain a feeling and a moment, when so much is always happening.

Part of the struggle is just to process the action-reaction of life,

long chains of cause and effect,

stretching beyond any imagination.

Things always seem so clear and they never mean what I think they do.

Newness is birthed from devastation and disappointment.

Opportunity is created from desperation and despair.

Really that's the thing about transformation though.

We are constantly evolving into better or worse versions of self,

tattooed by the choices we make,

marked by the relationships that we create or break.

The one thing I've always loved about change is the predictable unpredictability.

You never truly have full control on the realities of life,

just on the person you're choosing to be.

And sometimes life creates its own plan,

and karma comes back around,

and you find yourself in a place you never thought you could get too.

But its so natural, and conversation flows easily,

and when trying to digest it all afterwards,

you realize that your life is permanently changed.

I thought there was a different purpose to you,

even though deep down I knew we were't on the same page,

it was all so natural and organic,

I didn't realize that the result would be this way.

And I can never discount the time we spent together,

being the way we were,

and I'm grateful.

But in the end, you must release yourself from the things that keep you from what you want.

More importantly, from people who keep you from trying to figure it out.

Life is an adventure and its overcoming the obstacles that are in the way,

whatever those may look like.

The smile on your face reminds me that there is an innocence,

a beauty,

a perfection in imperfection.

What's the point of it all without taking risks?

Be that better version of self,

even if its only a little at a time.

Self-preservation and self-transformation are the driving forces behind purpose.

Live with undying passion, blind innocent beautiful passion...

because you have to challenge yourself to love harder and love bigger then before,

remember it's just about overcoming the obstacles,

so you can be surprised by what lies on the other side.

I do not have regrets.

I do not think it was a waste of time.

I do not long for the past.

I do not discount disappointments.

I do not let loneliness overpower curiosity.

I do not need to learn lessons twice.

I do not wish I was more understood, but rather the right amount of misunderstood.,

I do not forget to dance quietly,

smile loudly,

hope passionately.

I do not forget about the importance of appreciating beauty.

I do not settle for this version of self,

because i know another better one is waiting behind the next obstacle.

I do not let you have more of me then I give to myself,

because I do not forget to love myself,

I do not forget to be brave when I'm scared that life has stopped moving fluidly.

I do not forget patience for change.

I do not forget that it all matters.

  

"Have I ever shown you all my heart. For all I owe you, where would I start? A lifetime to count the ways wouldn't be enough to say That I thought that you should know How much you've helped me grow. And I wanna thank you. I wanna tell you this, For all of your selflessness. Thank you."

“I understand that if you have never suffered a broken heart, then you have never really known what it is to truly be alive. And I understand that at that precise moment, when your heart breaks open, that all you want to do is lay down and die! Because you know that is the only way the pain is ever going to stop.” 

...with every breath in my body, the sweetest surrender 
is losing myself in all that you are.

Holy water from my own veins, 
come and save me where I lay. 
All this longing for beauty unnamed. 
It has broken me open to welcome the hope that you bring.

It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. 

Sometimes it becomes impossible to pull the thoughts out of your head,

because it's a jumbled mess...and nothing can be sorted into the usual categories.

This impossible chore, to illustrate the many emotions with limited vocabulary.

This is what I think...sometimes its just more complex,

sometimes it just cannot be said in a way that even makes anything understandable.

But never-mind that anyways,

because really it still matters-whether its put into words or not.

And things that have always been important: beauty, love, transformation...

those are the things that are still ever so important, 
even without reminders...

it all drags on and blends together, 
and that is the illusion, life being life.

stability, consistency, ordinary.

I'm starving for the adventure, the unknown, the food that fed the appetite of a wanderer.

Forgetting that it was a dose of healthy fear that kept  sanity and a perspective.

It melts together into nothing, and I begin to hate what it now is.

But then forget what I hate, 
and forget how it used to work.

the deal I made with the universe, instant karma
...setting impossible goals and achieving them.

I refuse to let life dictate me.

I am the master and commander of my own destiny.

Because I know that it all matters.

and I know that you HAVE to appreciate the beauty,

and incorporate love.

Because honestly, without beauty and love ...

you are nothing.

I'm reminded of this by a certain feeling.

Its an odd feeling, like a bubble of air filling my chest and my teeth go numb.
Thats when i know it's real bad, when I feel my teeth go numb.

People talk about heart ache and heart break,

and I understand what they say.

That feeling of where you literally cannot breathe or think rationally, 

it feels like something heavy was dropped on top of you,

where you feel like you are made of cement and weight thousands of pounds, immovable...

but mostly the pain that consumes every part of you, blinding honest pain.

And it feels like the death of your soul.

like something is literally ripping and tearing your insides into tiny pieces,

and the overwhelming emptiness of a lonely heart is left behind.

This is to remind me to feel alive, to be alive, to know that life is happening.

To find that nothing is how you thought it was, and everything is different from what you wanted it to be.

But if you were really honest with yourself 
then you would admit that you knew from the beginning.

Why is it always easier in my perception,

why is reality so fucking cruel?

It never had to be the way it was, but it is what it is.

And in a sick masochistic way you're thankful for the reality check.

The feeling of complete emptiness to jolt you back into real life.

The feeling of being woken up in the middle of a really good dream.

I never ever thought life was going to be this hard.

You can choose to feel and endure the heartaches and heartbreaks,

you can choose to love hard and live adventurously,

and embrace disappointment as an opportunity to transform,
into the person that you always knew you wanted to be,
to maximize capabilities.

Or you can just be complacent, choose to turn it all off and look the other way.

you can cruise through life on autopilot,

you can pick distraction,

and claim ignorance.

It just doesn't seem fair to me that you have to hurt so hard to find happiness.

The lucky ones are those that just walk along and come across it.

I cannot choose to live my life on autopilot.

I cannot brush it off and claim ignorance,

I cannot find a distraction that works.

So instead I choose to embrace the disappointments.

Every time its the perfect dream where everything makes sense,

wake me up so I can feel whats real.

I choose honesty and I choose responsibility.

I am accountable to the person I am, and I am accountable to become the person I want to be.

Sometimes it just cannot be said in a way that makes anything understandable.

Sometimes I have no words to tell you this.

Its never been easy.

But if you were really honest with yourself,
 then you would admit that you knew from the beginning.

Why is it always easier in my perception,

why is reality so fucking cruel?

It never had to be the way it was, but it is what it is.
but don't forget, it all matters.

"...And do not forget the law of rhythm—that is at the back of everything. Count on rhythm; it never has failed yet, and it never will. Watch for the high tides of yourself and flow up with them; when the inevitable low tides come, either rest or meditate. You cannot escape rhythm. You transcend it by working with it. You can even turn and grow young, for time also has its tides; and there are many ripples in the long sea-swell of life."

"I always swore I would never live in New York," Sara Bareilles says with a laugh from her New York apartment. "I always felt so overwhelmed here. It's ironic -- the thing you think you don't need is the thing you actually need most."

So how do you do it,
With just words and just music,
Capture the feeling that my earth is somebody's ceiling
Can I deliver in sound
The weight of the ground
Of a cemetery
In the center of Queens

"What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

This is my winter song to you

The storm is coming soon

It rolls in from the sea

My voice, a beacon in the night

My words will be your light

To carry you to me

Is love alive?

-S.B.

Let the bough break, let it come down crashing

Let the sun fade out to a dark sky

I can't say I'd even notice it was absent

'Cause I could live by the light in your eyes

I'll unfold before you

Would have strung together

The very first words of a lifelong love letter

Tell the world that we finally got it all right

I choose you

I will become yours and you will become mine

I choose you

There was a time when I would have believed them

If they told me that you could not come true

Just love's illusion-But then you found me

And everything changed-

And I believe in something again

My whole heart Will be yours forever

This is a beautiful start

To a lifelong love letter

Lately it's been a lot of nothing but really everything,

dealing the day ins and day outs of mundane stability,

but learning to navigate myself around the different parts of the familiar,

letting it all just setting in my soul, filling me up to capacity.

I learn accountability to myself, too keep the nows and always as interesting as possible,

exhausting further energies to realize the beauty in the little things.

It's surprising how much is not missed,

and even more surprising how fast thoughts disappear.

I wonder who would believe me if i told them I think about my city every day,

everything sparks me to drift away so quickly into a daydream of the "what was...

and I know it was easier there to practice being a better version of myself.

The silences are so much louder now,

and i'm faced with less chances to prove that I'm transforming anonymously.

But no regrets, because the things I appreciate now are the things I lacked so much then.

The busy predictability of life, and friendship, and accessibility are scattering about my days,

and I know exactly who I need to be in relation to my circumstance.

I have succeeded and excelled at all the things I thought would be so difficult to master.

The things that are hard are all the things I knew would come.

Its a quite satisfaction in simply surviving the everyday mundane life.

I know who I can count on, I know who I can turn to...

I know who I get excited to see, and I know who to avoid,

every face that circles is a face that I've seen before.

It's about making the most of everything you hate, to appreciate the things you didn't know you would ever be.

Maybe someday...soon or in the future I'll be in that place again where everything is a fight to survive,

where everything matters...and you are battling the uncertainties and unpredictability of the life you knew you were supposed to live.

Where things count and things transform and things amaze,

and beauty if everywhere.

But until them...really it comes down to this:

we accept the love we think we deserve.

It's about choosing an attitude that reflects who you are as a person.

It's about representing yourself honestly,

it's about being comfortable in an uncomfortable life.

You never wanted to be me,

and I always want to be a better version of me.

Destiny. Fate. Serendipity.

It all comes into play as the universe shifts.

Its' about saying the big things that you leave unsaid because they are so scary.

Words trump action.

You hold in the things you want to keep sacred,

let out the things you have too...

When really-it becomes what's unsaid that matters.

I hope you know that I've never loved harder,

fought as intensely...to preserve a great love...

a love that last through the ages and explodes as perfection.

The long lasting, time stopping, heart breaking love.

It's important to me that you know that I prioritize this,

because it all matters. 

Without love you'll never understand the beauty in the little things...

and to me, if you can't find the beauty then it all becomes pointless.

So I choose love.

I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.

“I realize now that I wanted to disappear. To get so lost that nobody ever found me. To go so far away that I'd never be able to make my way home again. But I have no idea why.” 

                          

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          “Do you ever feel that way?"

"Lonely?"
I search for the words. "Restless. As if you haven't really met yourself yet. As is you'd passed yourself once in the fog, and your heart leapt - 'Ah! There I Am! I've been missing that piece!' But it happens too fast, and then that part of you disappears into the fog again. And you spend the rest of your days looking for it."

Its that magic hour again...and it's been so long since it's been this way...

do you ever find yourself so lost?

Down a road you didn't plan for, didn't choose...but rather found yourself on-

wandering the windy twists and turns and wondering how the hell you got this far along?

Where perception is everything, and it's exactly as you imagined and pretended it should go.

But now you have no clue where to go next or what to do.

Instead you are left with the choices you made and an emptiness that makes the reality turn to memories.

The times and places and people in your life that were pointing you to a destination,

but now you've forgotten where that was.

The familiar oddness...

The one that wonders why perceptions are so skewed.

To have everything and to have everything be not enough,

becomes this anthem of confusion.

Once upon a time there was a destination in sight,

and now that the city lights have faded and it's all so distant.

The waiting and the patience...the impatience replaces bravery.

I knew once upon a time is every time that isn't now.

The where and when of the greatness past.

Tell the people that they mean to you the way they do.

That you're just lost and you'll be back soon,

but finding your way is the only option to bring about the happiness deserved.

Cause in reality, even when it feels like nothing matters,

it all matters.

Transformation of past experiences to life lessons.

Damaging, honesty, hopeful brokenness.

What once was matters,

my once upon a time matter.

The most important part of it all is to have the love,

that happiness comes first,

then love hard,

appreciate beauty,

speak out truth.

Mostly, stand for the things you believe in...

cause those still matter, as unobtainable as it may seem.

Adventure, experience, forward motion,

that all matters.

But don't love blindly, because the only blind love that matters is love you show yourself.

Love you give away must be closely examined through investigative eyes.

Love first the things you know have always given back to you,

in ways you could have never helped yourself.

Love second the beauty that's in everything around you,

appreciate the simple things.

Love thirdly the kind of love that cannot be explained,

because the unexplained loves are the great ones.

The kind that fuels the file of discovery and adventure...

that makes you believe that everything has a specific part to the grander scheme of self.

I remember a past self in a different life and a different city.

I remember finding a person there that I had known all along but never came to love.

I remember loving deeper and more truly then anything,

and I remember how much it mattered.

Why are you so inevitable to me?