this is it, this it is!

i am 28 now 🙂 in japan, if you believe in time difference, it’s september 6…apologies in advance for the broad and sweeping notions, the sentimentality that is about to flow out of me. but y’all know how i am.

i am having a moment in life where, if i had to write a step-by-step guide to happiness, i would say: relinquish control, be observant, free yourself up to nature and your own desires, notice the desires of those around you and suddenly, life starts going your way, without manipulation or struggle. not luck, i feel intentional…not blessings, but the treasures of faith. hallelujah! faith trumps all religion in my book. its the one.

the faith i feel right now cuts me loose from the past and the future. it cuts me loose from the trappings of ego. i have always approached achievement as personal, instead of as releasing control to be a perfect tool for use in divine work.

i have gone from pleasure activist to now-ist…the pleasure is still omni-present, but right now i am just amazed to be alive. it is my 28th birthday, but in some ways it is only my third, i came that close to checking out of this zha-zha in 2003. leaning in, i feel the curiousity and hunger for life that a child feels. the worst that can happen is not failure. it is emptiness. i have been there, and i have no wish to return. the fullness is as big, and it’s inside, and it’s all around…i know i’ve said it but, we’re all holy to me.

so i plan differently…when you are deeply immersed in the present, there’s only one path forward and it’s the one you are taking. i’m not on any drugs, nothing but what i am sure of: you can’t be tied to victory, loss, dreams, even a place. everything we know in this world is transient except the way. you literally ARE the way you live in this word, or any other, including your dreams (i.e. do you have integrity in your dreams…are you at least honest?)

a break from thoughts, here’re some things i think i owe you:

– conclusions on the heartbreaker. really it was me all along, if you get down to it. the man himself was the unlucky person i bumped up against with all my longing out like a great exposed nerve ending; he got to know who i thought i was, sandpapered down by rejection to who i couldn’t possibly be. i have protected his privacy this long, it’s the last gift i’ll give him. and because i know you are all aware of how hard that journey was, i can honestly say: the place in my heart where he sits is healed. listen to dinah washington’s "i don’t hurt anymore" and feel me. 

– why stop now? i thought i had been writing so much on here that the reasons i had to stop blogging this way were clear, plus i still hold to my belief that a handful of people read it and it’s just a blog…but so many of you have asked why, people i didn’t even know were reading…so…

1. it’s gotten bizarre to show up for dinner with someone who knows everything about me cause they read the blog, while i know nothing about them, and my shoddy memory ensures that i can’t even retain what they told me last time. i am going to stop this blog in order to level the playing field a bit; my next act of discipline is honing my listening skills.

2. i am developing a sense of privacy, what is for me to know and what is for others to know. i would like to try and see how that could work for me.

3. i run an organization now! it feels more like grown up stuff than anything i’ve done before, and as a grown up i sense that i don’t need y’all all reading about my latest adventures in love, sex, partying, etc. even as i write this, there is a story burning up my fingers which would just make my staff blush. i have to end this paragraph immediately!

– and now what…i am writing a few things. a column here, a blog there. we’re going to do a blog for ruckus, i’ll be writing for colorlines, for wiretap, and for the women in media and news blog. i’ll cover stuff like my feelings on the segregation of "survivor", and other issues of race, class, culture. i will post it all here, along with occasional musings, nothing daily or weekly or even monthly, just, when its right. i am going to write longer pieces to loved ones who are far away. if you want to correspond, dialogue, just holla.

and…i guess some last words:

given a choice, i want to know as much as possible and try everything. the goal here is no avoidable regrets. i am going as deep and as wide as possible, and i am grateful to all of you who went there with me for this little window of time. keep it up, and let me know how it goes.

moving forward, i want to learn from ancient paths, i want to feel it when i am forging new ones. i am not scared. i know, because i used to be, and this feels so different.

i believe that what i want in life is within my reach, is possible, is fundamentally good. i am beyond surviving – i know, better than ever before, how to reach for what i need and love and clasp it to my heart, to let it in, my feelings are closer to real than ever before. everything is deeper, love too.

i see people who don’t reach, who don’t demand more from the world around them, from their loved ones…they seem tired to me already, no matter how old. they seem underwhelmed. they are already near the end of their life force…i think you have to cultivate your awe, it keeps you younger, it makes life worth living. ask yourself: what is keeping you from greatness? what is the most useful way you could use your life and your gifts, knowing you have so many more than you realize…and why would you not go that route?

you have to have a line in the sand, remembering that it is sand, and sand is always shifting. a standard for your celebration. be honest, especially when it surprises you. contain multitudes, even as you settle into who you are. life, at its most painful, tedious and mundane, is nothing short of miraculous, incomprehensible, and complete.

when i went deep into myself, what i saw was that i was great at critiquing, but not allowing myself to create. i think change only happens when fearlessness, self assessment and compassion collide in your heart and it flows out from there. then everything you do is a creation, a prayer, a worship, a dance…its one huge moment of gratefulness.

i have usually written sad poems, love songs, and political essays. need want need want. i am in a place of enough, enough, enough and it feels good. this blog, which began as a private documentation of my learning the discipline of quick writing, has become instead a documentation of me learning to fuse my three styles of output, and learning the discipline of joy.

i absolutely adore you for reading. i can’t go any deeper. i have fallen in love before your very eyes, with myself, and with the world around me. i hope you feel it.

basta.

adrienne maree