Satiation

In light of the year slowly trickling away into gradual closure, I find myself nagged by the thought of flipping through the pages of what the past 360 days have taught me in my own figurative album of growing up. To say it has been an adventure quite simply understates it, but on the other hand I'm wondering if part of my stoicism plays any substantial role in helping me arrive at this conclusion. Not in the slightest, possibly, but then again if all I'd done throughout the past year revolved around shielding my own related feelings toward the ups and downs of life, how could this have justified an adventure? To what emotional mounds have all these life events exactly conjured into? It's hard these days to completely drill an assertion into the unfolding of a particular event, in a way that it could never just mean one thing to you. How do I put this - I don't think there is any plausible way where you could rest on just one emotion for a certain situation. It happens when you finish listening to a new song on the radio and immediately attach a label on how you feel the song is to be interpreted, but in time as you listen to it more and more, you surprise yourself by identifying with other stranger - perhaps even unwanted - feelings you thought you would never have come across. Strange, isn't it?

I'm finding it rather frightening how I find these feelings frightening, when in actuality I may just be working myself up into a state which I unsurprisingly always do. As Christmas came today, it dawned upon me just how much I could wrap around the essence of what the celebration held. Feelings of joy, gratefulness, amazement, unworthiness, guilt, freedom, hope...they all came together and meshed into one convoluted bundle, so tied in with one another that the mere understanding of a festive celebration suddenly appeared to come with a fresh revelation of emotions I hadn't previously felt. It's amazing, really, what growing up does to your capacity in handling situations which become so magnified in your vision as each breathing day goes by. It's even more peculiar to me that the more I see of the world, the more reality conflicts with what I stand on, and it in turn tries its very best to mess with my ability to assess a situation based on the right amount of judgment and discernment. Perhaps it shouldn't be viewed too negatively, because nothing does it quite like taking the knocks of life and emerging from the chaos with something beautiful. The greater comfort, of course, is knowing that you don't experience these things alone when you have the Greatest of all leading you through life's winding paths.

But I digress. It strikes me that I may be masking a lot of my own feelings most of the time, and ultimately I'm finding it a challenge to immediately associate with a certain kind of sentiment, simply because I'm lacking in that relatable sense of connecting with my own heart. Then again, it may be a case of too much questioning which leaves me to a complete standstill. Such reasoning I give to myself, when in fact I'm being hopeful that my lack of clarity in expressing myself in day-to-day situations may subdue my sensitivity in responding to other peoples' plights. Which leaves me absolutely no where, when I really think about it, that there isn't a chance this wouldn't come backfiring at me, pinning my sense of confusion way past the point of break.

I sit here by the windows of my stay in London which are painted so elegantly in evening streaks, the air electric with undeniable Christmas cheer. The music speakers start buttering the tune of Emmanuel by Chris Tomlin and I'm simply immersing myself in the beauty of what and Who provided me with this heart to begin with. This heart, that I ought to appreciate with humility, a reminder that hit me as I blew the candles off my 21st birthday cake just last week. This human heart, which isn't perfect, but is capable of storing and retaining an insurmountable measure of resilience and love which acts as both shelterbelts and sponges to experiences in our respectful journeys on earth. But as the night dwells, I continue to remain dumbfounded by the undiscovered lessons that have yet to come my way, with an unfinished canvas ahead of me, awaiting the eager strokes of ink - dark and light - to eventually form into a worthy piece of art.