Ramblings from within… a letter to my friends…
Today I am home packing up my house, again, filled with deja vu. As I contemplate leaving all that I know here and returning to the well known and yet unfamiliar place called “home”… I do know one thing clearly. It is that I want to hold onto the sense of myself that I have developed in the time that I have been here. In this window in my life I feel like I am slowly becoming a person that I like being. While I have had many moments of doubt, and some of the darkest days of my life while I have been here, I also feel strongly that somehow doing what I do here, living the way that I live here, being the way that I exist and interact here… This is the closest sense of being true to myself that I have known so far in life.
And now as I contemplate changing so much in my life – all over again… I wonder how I can hold onto this sense of myself ? How do you define yourself? Is it in your work? Is it through how your friends see you? Is it through your hobbies and the fun things you do for entertainment? If you took yourself out of all of that, over and over again, how would you define your sense of yourself? I know that since being here a big chunk of how I define myself is wrapped up in being an international volunteer doing fabulous world changing work… it’s a really hard identity to leave behind…
This will be the third time in the last few years that I have changed almost everything in my life. I have had moments of deep questioning about who I am and how I see myself and my place in the world. And the struggle of challenging and questioning my assumptions has made me feel like I have a closer relationship with who I am on the inside.
But – how will I survive returning to my old world? The challenge I am anticipating is how I am to go through this upcoming upheaval without losing the internal sense of myself that has been hard won over the my time here.
My dear friends at home – yes you… you know who you are… you have blown me away with your loyalty and commitment to me over the last several years. I have chopped and changed and weathered drama and such sparkling highs and quiet soggy lows, and you have come along for the ride. To express how much your friendships mean to me would take pages of gushing… but suffice for now to say that you have been my anchor through emotional storms, my reference point through days of sunshine and glory, my solace and my source of bubbling happiness… THANK YOU!!
And so as I go through this next time of change and redefinition of myself… I again ask for your ever-abundant patience… I may seem different to you at times (I have long hair now!), and I am different in lots of ways…there are new things about me, and things that have stayed the same, and things that have always been there that have become stronger… And I trust that you can and will allow me to be who I am now while knowing that I am still the same loving friend… I will be trying to hold onto myself and work out how to be with you and my old world… one step at a time :-) And I am really looking forward to seeing you!!
R
X X
4 comments:
rhi, why do I not know what is next for you? You probably e-mailed but we still don't know. what does your future entail? we know it will be bright, invigorating and meaningful whatever happens! trish
Rhi,
We all change. We weather the test of time and circumstance and selves and in doing so we add to the complicated layers that are us. You! I know but a few of your layers as you know but a few of mine, but each time i spend time with you, interact with you, hear from you... i learn a little more of some of the others... and all the time i see the same layers that attract me to you, but this time they are wrapped in new situations and experiences and new "clothes".
Essentially we all take our good layers and we build on them, making them stronger and just more, while at the same time learning what we can choose to leave behind.
I love the rhiannon I already know. I know I will love the Rhiannon you will evolve into over the next month, year, 5 years, life. For it is your spirit - the fundamental layer from which all overs are overlayed, intertwined and connected - that remains the same.
And that, my dear dear friend, is what makes you my true friend.
Come back different, the same, sad, happy, excited or lost.. for you will always have a loving friend here for you.
xx
The real you is inside of you. It gets expressed in your work, your friends and whatever else is in your life at the time. It's just easier to express in some environments than others but it is there inside you all the time. You cannot loose it. It just feels like it sometimes.
Willy
aw steph...
you brought a tear to my eyes ! Thanks !
x x x
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