Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

 

Art Credit: Tassa Bitsanni on Pitify

 

“Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.” – Dr. Dale E. Turner

You didn’t want to just settle.

Who knows how it happened. It just did.

At what point to did you make that bed and lie down in it?

When did you decide to sink and submerge into a life that you never planned for?

Like many other women, who’s so-called truth did you believe that at some time, ‘you’ll have to settle down and make a life for yourself’? What were you doing before, not living?!

No, that’s not true.

Some nights do you wake at 3am, unable to sleep do you get up, keeping silent so as not to disturb anyone else, do you make yourself a drink and find yourself alone talking to the girl that used to know?

A picture keeps appearing before you.

You’ve seen it before, it comes often in these moments when you are asking in the darkness ‘is this it?’, or ‘where have I gone?’ but it’s so foggy and unclear, you’re not sure if it’s an actual memory belonging to you.

Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it? – Caroline Myss.

In the frame you can see a girl: she looks like you, she speaks like you and she’s begging you to remember her.

She reminds you of the dreams you once swore to live, the aspirations that nobody or anything were going to get in the way of you creating and the passions you once had and spoke about for endless hours.

She begs you to take another look at the picture, to stop just settling and remember the you that you used to be and the world that was available to you is still open for you, if you want it.

She wants you to know it’s possible to retrieve part of what it is to be you without wrecking all that you’ve built up.

You want to pay attention to her but you also think she has no right reminding you.

You question and fight her, telling her that those times and that person are in the past, this is who you are now, you made your choices, you decided on the paths taken.

She leaves, only just to return another night when you are quiet enough to hear her, another day when you are questioning, another moment when you are totally aware of yourself.

She won’t leave. She can’t. She only wants you to remember. To give her some thought every now and then. She knows you are different to her. She doesn’t want you to go back and be her. She just wants you to hang out with her every now and then.

She makes you cry, often. Days, months, years have passed since you last allowed her to be truly free.

And sometimes that hurts. Really hurts. Because free is what you crave. You have no desire to turn your back on the responsibilities you love, that’s not the freedom you really want, the freedom to be you does not have to come at a price.

Some nights you think need to contain that girl. If you didn’t who knows what might happen. You don’t want to be rocking any boats:

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

I won’t do any better, so I’ll stick with what I know.

I might not make it, so I won’t start.

Better not to risk and look foolish.

Anything is better than nothing.

When she knew you well, you didn’t say these words.

It’s been such a long time since she heard you really laugh.

“Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.” – Wendy Wasserstein

She knows that you have been bending to accommodate others. She knows that you had to modify your behaviour and adjust to the roles you willing accepted and the responsibilities that became yours, but she can see the price that this has cost you.

Some days, she’s there when you look in the mirror and her worst fear is that sometime in the future when you look she won’t be there,  the sparkle will be gone completely, and all that is left is regret behind the eyes.

She knows you are lost. She knows.

She is the one who can remind you of all of the possibilities and opportunities. She wants you to experience life like how you used to show her life was to be experienced: curious, enquiring, new and fresh.

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.

Mary Anne Radmacher

She’s not asking you to give anything else up, not if you don’t want to, all she’s asking is for you to remember her once in a while and let her out to play.

“The strength of a woman is not measured by the impact that all her hardships in life have had on her; but the strength of a woman is measured by the extent of her refusal to allow those hardships to dictate her and who she becomes.”

Lots of love,