… then I’m less of a coward than I was last year.
It’s my 24th birthday today, and trust me, my 23-year old self would not have found the courage to make this post. Maybe he would have written it, but it would never see the light of day.
I’m growing.
In the last year, I’ve made leaps I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of in real life. I could have imagined it so vividly, have every detail of the leap ingrained in my mind, clear as day, then I would turn it into a story. Everything is always good in a story, as long as it wasn’t my reality.
I lived in my head longer than I did in the real world, and consequently, I had less social interactions than I would want. Yet, I didn’t think that was something I could actively transform. It was like watching a movie: you think this is totally feasible, that love story is something that could happen to your friend or someone else across the world–it wasn’t mere fiction–but you just don’t see it happening to you. It wasn’t meant to be your reality.
And then I turned 23 and something changed–or rather, something began to change everything. It was in bits but they started coming together in a way that, looking back now, the whole picture is still very much crazy, because it looks so different from what it was a year ago.
It now looks like, a lazy artist who had spent all his time drooling on a canvas had suddenly gotten a wack from the Muse, and it is obvious a masterpiece is in works even though it’s not there yet.
I’m still a coward. I still live in my head. But I’m less of those things now. I’ve grown. I’m still growing and sometimes like every growth, it’s painful and discomforting, but it’s worth it.
The soundtrack of my life was “All Alone”. Then it slowly phased into “At Least I’m Not As Sad As I Used To Be”. And maybe I’m not there yet, maybe I’m still a long way from what I want my life to look like, but I’m now at a point where I can always fall back on this: it’s “All Alright.”
…
One thing that has kept me going this past year is that the thought of being ordinary scares me. I’ve never liked fitting in. But it took a turn when sharing the little progress in my life spurred others to question the path their own because now they think it’s possible there is something better for them out there.
That right there is what has kept me going– the thought of being different and helping others, making someone else live their life to the fullest, come out of their comfort zones and achieve greatness.
So if you’re reading this, then, as I look forward to another year of breaking my record and having a more appealing masterpiece in the works this time next year, maybe you could have something better too. Just maybe.
