Once again, my friends, I am going to wax lyrical and ramble on about the many random thoughts that rattle around inside of my head. Do you remember when you were a kid, and you believed that absolutely ANYTHING was possible? I mean, I really did believe that one day I’d be a famous singer, and I remember how crushed I was when Christina Aguilera and I were both sixteen and she was a star and I was not. Maybe this is just because I was an A type personality with compulsive studying habits, but I remember in high school being absolutely positive that I would, somehow, someday, do something absolutely fantastic – that I was meant for greater things than most people. I believed all of my good press; I believed it when people said to me, “You’re so talented, you’re going to do great things.” It wasn’t so long ago but I feel like a lifetime has passed between now and then. I feel so OLD. I think that that comes with giving up…on yourself, on your dreams, on life in general. I became…well, satisfied is not the word but…content to live as a cistern that merely contains, to blend into the crowd, to be beige.
It’s so sad that society seems to think it’s so risque to declare that actually, you think you’re pretty fabulous. I guess when you’re younger, they dismiss it as foolish naivety. But why should we lose that “childish enthusiasm”? I don’t want to blend in anymore. I don’t want to accept the status quo. I, like Veronika, want to break all the rules and do what the hell I like, hang the world and their opinions! I used to live life that way. Some said I was being reckless, irresponsible, selfish. But what is this life about if it isn’t for us to discover every aspect of what it means to be me. here. right now. I used to travel, all the time, as far as my terminally ill bank account would allow (and sometimes further). I took myself off on roadtrips to places I’d never been, I got lost on highways, had to beg for money to pay the tollgate, I hit a cow for Christ sakes! I took three boats, a taxi and a wheelbarrow in Brazil to get to an island I’d only heard about. I slept on a palm leaf on a concrete floor and got the shits from the local rainwater in Mozambique, just so I could stay an extra two days! I walked the entire city of Florence, with a girl from Mexico who had come to Italy for the same reason as me: just because she felt like it. And so what? So I’ve made some mistakes, I’ve given my mom a few grey hairs and my bank account a lot of debt, but I’ve LIVED. And I have so much more living left to do.
Being broke never stopped me before. I once waitressed for just three days so I could go on a roadtrip to the Natal coast. I wore heels and was a sales rep for Macro for two months so I could swim with whalesharks in Mozambique. And I am now living by the charity of friends and strangers because I had three weeks of complete joy in Europe. I do not intend to stop. If I have to, I will type documents for offices and wait tables for the wealthy so that I can go home for Christmas. Because at the end of the day, I want to live my life like an overflowing fountain, not merely a cistern that contains.
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