What is it about humans that we’re always so desperately seeking signs. Perhaps it’s permission we’re looking for, from the universe, from ourselves, perhaps it is validation, perhaps it’s just confirmation that we’re not half as crazy as we may feel. Whatever the case may be, we’re all looking for signs, creating them when we cannot find them (though we probably don’t know we’re creating them), and seeking them in song lyrics and movie quotes, in bits of art, in poetry, in the strangest of places, strangest of faces when we cannot find them anywhere else. Sign seekers, we, always has been this way, probably always will. We invent stories to make sense of the world, we tell ourselves the universe is listening. The secret is, it absolutely is.
I’ve noticed, in my now 40 years of wandering, one area above all others stands out when it comes to the signs we’re seeking. There’s one place we are all desperate for the permission, the validation, the confirmation to soothe us, and it’s in the ability to begin again. To start over. To breathe. We, all of us at some point, are so terrified to believe our gut instinct that screams at us from the inside, begging us to shift gears, to reevaluate, to stop wandering down the path we’re on in favor of the path we’re born for. For some unexplained reason, we wait and wait and wait for some cosmic permission to become the people we’re destined to become. We wait for signs, searching for them in a billion places, connecting dots like stars and constellations and convincing ourselves that what we need to hear is being spoken by a force larger and a hell of a lot more benevolent than us. We believe in the signs we find. My god we believe.
Today, I am speaking to you. Yes, you. Today, I am the sign you’ve been seeking, the universe that is sick of whispering and so I’ll shout. Today, I’m begging you to see this sign, I’m pleading from my knees to listen: You no longer have to carry what you’ve carried, you no longer have to hold onto relationships that make you feel small, you no longer have to accept abuse, you no longer have to settle for less than anything other than lightning striking your soul in some triumphant and passionate exchange. You can whittle down, you can cut out, you can drop the load and walk forward. You can, and more than this, you should. This is the sign you have been scouring your life for, the striped shirt and glasses Waldo hiding in a sea of things that look so precariously like him. This is it.
We are a species that fears closing doors behind us, we’re a species that thinks the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, so we keep these ‘options’ open, we fear committing to one thing in the belief that it’ll close the door we’ve been standing in all these years. I’m here to tell you, sometimes you have to burn a bridge to make sure you cannot retreat, sometimes you have to let go of the vine you’re swinging on in order to grab the better one with both hands.
You’re holding the sparkler in your hands, the flame that will illuminate the rest of your life, but if you don’t start the fire, don’t let it shine, what’s the point? Lean your firework into mine, borrow this glow until yours ignites. It’s time to begin again, it’s time to lift our sparklers into the fading light and watch the sparks of who we were dance, feel their heat on the back of our hands, before falling to the floor of this earth. Lean in, the flame is waiting.
An excuse for breath,
this can be the sign you sought
to begin again.
Song of the Week
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To Begin Again | 9.12.21