I’ve been searching for myself for awhile now - at least that’s what I tell people when they ask what this journey is about. What I write about. I guess the next logical question would be is how would I know that I’ve found what I’m looking for when I get there?

At first I was looking for hope, as we all do when life doesn’t feel like it makes sense anymore. Hope is what keeps you going, it’s what the soul craves in times of crisis and what helps to pick yourself up when giving up feels like the perfect place to lay your head. I found hope in many things - family, friends, strangers and lovers. Hope came in forgiveness. It came in asking questions. Sometimes it even came in sheer stubbornness and belief that this couldn’t be it for me - I couldn’t be on this Earth and for life to just stop...right here. Hope is the string in the bow that your fingers grip, and the more you hold on to that hope, that belief, the greater the momentum you will have when you let go and fly.

Yet that lingering question is still there...who am I, now?

My answer to that is - I still don’t know, and not knowing is kind of exciting for me. Not knowing gets me up in the morning. To try new things and be OK with making mistakes - to push myself out of my comfort zone. It gave me courage to find my voice and speak my truth. I feel that is far more beneficial to my sense of self-worth than having all the answers.

Waking up before sunrise feels like second nature to me now - which means that I can do a gym workout and see the sun rising as I’m driving home. There’s been some pretty special ones lately, especially when JC and I can get to the beach in time. You know that saying that dogs take after their owners? We both get a bit antsy if we’ve been indoors too long - she gets it, because she loves the beach too. I think she likes people more than I do though, because she makes friends just by the way she smiles.

I love the way dogs are essentially hedonistic creatures. Did you know that a dog experiences the same euphoria of seeing their owner as two lovers in each other’s orbit? That’s some pretty intense feelings! Simply that they live to love and feel love. How cool is that?

Yes, they live to love and feel love…How much easier would life be if we accepted in that state?

I think this next phase in my life is about making decisions - to have that mindset of moving forward and no longer looking back. To know that even the ashes of who I was, only I can truly set myself free. That I’m deserving of incredible happiness and that I don’t need to do or be anything else to be deserving of that - I already am.

Today, I promise myself that it will be my last sunset of looking back. In the sunrise I’m going to smile and be grateful that this life isn’t over, it’s only the beginning.