This Is My Fire
I believe there are two fires for which we can choose to live our lives by. The first fire is fueled by you creating your own hell of suffering and negative thoughts. It is the one whose flames I have been working to douse through creating a deeper connection with myself and listening to what I want for my life. This is the fire that can be hard to escape with flames that blind you from seeing what your life can truly be if you are willing to work hard on extinguishing it over time.
The other, more beautiful fire, is the one in which you ignite the flame within and allow it to burn brightly, sharing it with the world—your passions, your gifts, your beauty, your creativity, your compassion, your love. This is the fire you want to stoke, get it burning nice and hot and big. This is the fire that will take over when you focus on what you want to create rather than what you don’t have.
When I sit in silence and evaluate my life, I see that the choices I’ve made have steered me closer to the things that I want to create for myself. Of course, it hasn’t been a nice, linear path. That isn’t how life works as there are lessons to be learned along the way through the detours and potholes. But the physical moves I have been making have introduced me to things I’ve needed for my continued healing and growth, and have opened me up to creating space for the things I want more of.
My moves have also helped me transition from a darker place of loneliness to one in which I more regularly embrace solitude. This is something I hadn’t acknowledged I have been working on for years in being single, navigating the world with my own heart, my own mind, my own choices rather than have another human being’s defaults guide me. I am now my own guide, my own journeyer, my own map maker and always have been, but somewhere along the way from moving into adulthood, I became disconnected from that truth and am coming back to it.
There are still many moments in which I cry alone because of the things I sometimes feel I’ve missed out on—opportunities, relationships, a “traditional” family of my own. I realize now that I have been working on rewriting this story to be one in which I have been guided towards a different path than I may have originally envisioned. My life isn’t over so I am redefining outdated definitions. My family can be made up of anyone I choose and I can have multiple families, which in a sense, I do. Perhaps I don’t have children of my own, but I can keep sharing my story with other children in the world—young and old—to help them better navigate their own stories. And the opportunities I thought I may have missed out on created space for ones I hadn’t thought of and for ones that have not yet presented themselves. I am giving myself permission to bring back the things I’ve always loved but gave up on when I felt like I was being given up on. I now realize I had given up on me, which is the biggest dream stealer and hope robber of all time. I stopped loving myself and my life.
The pent-up frustration I have been feeling is that fire inside that has always been there. I have been slowly fueling its flames, and it is now roaring and cannot be ignored. I will continue to strengthen my relationship, my connection, my love with my self. I will continue to live my life more fully and redefine as needed, what that means for me. I will continue to embrace my solitude and the gifts it brings, which have been many.
I cannot let the fire inside me die. I have picked up my cameras again, something I’d walked away from years ago. I am writing more frequently than ever before. I am giving myself permission to submit my written and photographic work to various contests. I am mapping out new places to explore. I am tapping more fully into my creativity, my inner child. I am letting go of how things need to look and breathing in the truth of allowing them to unfold as they will.
My creative path has been a long journey and I’ve been frustrated that things haven’t progressed in a way I’d like them to, but perhaps they will unfold in a way I’d not thought of, or in one of the many new ways I envision. I have to keep trying, otherwise the flames start dying as well as a piece of my soul. These things are me—they are my joy, my art, my beautiful gifts, my love. This is my fire.
LYF 💖
REFLECTION: Which fire’s flames are you regularly fueling? What is your internal fire?
40 Weeks of Inspiration: Week 25
