The Destiny We Create

I am realizing more and more how fortunate I feel to be exactly where I am, at this moment. During this past year of my life, something really amazing happened. Mostly it was an inward change, and gradual one at that, but it was as if this little flame of light inside me grew brighter and brighter until I looked clearly at myself one day and realized that I had grown into a person I really loved. I began to see my uniqueness not as something to separate me from others, not as something to hide away or minimize or deflect, but as something to prize, to celebrate, and appreciate.
For a soul whose spirit yearns for serenity and inner freedom much as an eagle yearns to soar the skies, and who has experienced through the harsh realities of life the ache of clipped wings and tethering relationships, this realization was monumental. It was as if I granted myself a huge gift -- the freedom to be exactly who I am, with no guilt, no apologies, no hiding behind the paradigms of others or shrinking to fit within the outline of someone else's shadow. I could live my life, live my dreams. My life became truly my own.
And in the year that has followed, I have witnessed and felt so much healing within myself. I have experienced what I can only explain as an upward spiral as life has taken on brighter and brighter hues, as the doors of opportunity have opened wider and wider for me, as I have reconnected with more and more of the people who have been touchstones in my life. Gone are the days of closing myself off from others or shutting down my innermost self in hopes of calming the raging storm that existed in those who pretended to care most about me.
I have felt, certainly for the first time in a long time, an inner assurance that I am where I am "meant" to be, if there is such a thing, or that, at the very least, I am where I have destined myself to be. I remember countless afternoons spent circling the Hampden Heights East neighboorhood during my daily walk. The sun would filter down through clear, cloudless skies and as I relaxed into the rhythm of my pace, I would visit a corner of my mind where I kept an eye on my future life. It was here that I envisioned myself living and breathing and smiling and ... soaring. And now, months later, here I am, the living embodiment of those earlier visualizations.
What we dream of, what we think about, even that which we fear, we pull towards us with the magnetic energy that is within us. I believe this, I believe this, I believe this. And so, as I begin this new journey, I challenge myself to hold on to the highest and best that exists in my mind and heart, to keep it close to me, and to make this experience another in which I continue to soar.