After a long week of fighting frost on black, icy mornings to go serve coffee to cold (and sometimes cranky) customers, I had planned to stay in bed until at least early afternoon today--my first day off in the New Year. Had it been cloudy and snowy, I would have put that plan into action, but it was the bluest January sky I ever remember seeing peeking in at me as I stretched awake that foiled any and all plans to be lazy. Too many winters wrought with seasonal depression and unbearable restlessness have taught me--if nothing else--to take full advantage of nature's little surprises, like this glorious January sunshine.
So this morning as I drank my French-pressed, whiskey-barrel-aged Brazilian coffee out of the coffee-loving mug my dear cousin gave to me for Christmas, I knew it was time to give life to this blog that I've been thinking about since last year's pain began to transform into joy and hope. Yesterday the sun was shining, not quite as brightly as this, but I felt the joy bubbling within me until it began to overflow and my mother accused me of doing drugs and my dad asked if I'd been drinking. I laughed and laughed and silently wondered why I'm 24 and still living at home. Then I remembered that I chose this life for myself. Out of fear, I chose to be a college grad living with my parents while I work as a barista and dream of changing the world. Yes, I dream, and dreaming may be as far as I go, but I've got my coffee and sunshine, a family who cares about me, friends who believe in me, and a God who loves me. I've got love, and that's really all I need.
I have no idea where I'm going this year, or what I'm doing, but I am certain that I will make mistakes along the way, and that's okay (I say this over the fearful protests of my inner perfectionist because I refuse to let her win any more battles). As Ernest Hemingway wrote: "In going where you have to go and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused." I am learning, slowly, painfully, how to really love, without fear, and not just dream about it or write about it. It's 2012. It's time to live the dream.
