2014 was undoubtedly a personal disaster of a year. Yes, I achieved some pretty amazing things: launched a school internationally, had the opportunity to finally teach on leadership and small business (internationally too now that I think of it), but by the end of the year I realised that I had spent the better part of my 20's trying to eradicate myself by becoming someone else, and it was not bringing me any level of contentment or joy. It was a year in which I realised that I could in fact fall in to, what felt a lot like love, in spite of my best efforts not to, and that I could also get my heart broken in new and excruciating ways. In short, 2014 was a year of external achievement that lacked any true substance for me, and internal failure.
The year ended with the security blanket of my faith in God dragging on the floor, thread bare, tattered and torn.
BUT, just like any good story, the disaster that was, saw me finally coming to the end of the construct of the personality that I had attempted to carve out over the past decade, to finally reveal the person that I had lost so many years before. The person who I actually enjoy being. The person I no longer wish to deny, but embrace without fear.
It seems, that I had to come to the end of everything I was, to force fear to lose its grip on my soul, so that I could become everything I am, and have always been. I was, and am being, freed to do so many new things that in turn force the grip of fear to loosen even further.
I embarked upon my Grand Social Experiment (to be documented in later blog posts, as it is still underway) where I met a lothario who dismantled my matrix for processing the world, and in a way that not even I can comprehend, managed to reintroduce me to myself. I will be forever in his debt for that, and eternally grateful to this man who I will, in all likelihood, never meet again.
I became friends with a real-grown-up-man who is not asexual in any way, values women's minds, and respects boundaries. Someone you cannot play games with, but instead get to have real, and terrifying, grown up conversations about life, and relationships with a man who has been in them instead of speaking from theory, as so many others have done in the past.
I encountered an Australian who has more integrity than most people I have met, even though at first blush it seems just the opposite, and an Argentine with an uncanny ability to get people to be themselves, and live mask-free, which was a privilege to experience first hand.
My deep need for social connection and community makes my heart break at the thought that I won't see any of these life-changers again in this world (but I remain hopeful that I will), and I am struck by the irony that people I have spent years with, haven't influenced or encouraged me to be myself as much as these people have in, in some cases, a few hours of knowing them. This raises various interesting questions about how it was with mostly non-Christian people that I finally felt the pleasure of the God in 2014. That is another story, for another time, though.
What have all of these chance encounters with strangers done for my world? For today, they have given me the courage I need to finally set about planning my departure from South African shores. I haven't felt that this is my home for a over 7 years now, and FINALLY I feel brave enough to make the change. They have made me realise that it is OK for me to push off in to the deep waters without any idea of where I am going, but trust that as I take the ores direction will come. And if it doesn't - to not have a back up plan, but know that everything will be alright, because the Father really does love me and want my happiness in this world, not my suffering.
Will I change jobs this year? There is a 100% guaruntee that will happen, or I will be denying my own happiness for another year, which I refuse to do.
Will I move to Argentina this year? I like to think that I will.
What will I do there? I have no idea - and that is OK.
What if things go wrong? They undoubtedly will, and that is OK too. I will work it out as I go along.
Isn't this all very irresponsible? Possibly, but I would rather be irresponsible in the eyes of the world, than spend any more time being irresponsible with my joy, and who I am at heart. Sometimes it is OK not to have a grand plan/destiny you are pressing toward. Sometimes you just need to go with what is bringing you joy and a sense of fulfillment. Eventually destiny should take care of itself as long as you are true to who you are and how you are made. We are to pursue God, not an agenda (our own or that of someone else).
