LOOKING FORWARD

One of the biggest challenges for me in uprooting myself from my old life in New York and coming to Los Angeles with essentially a clean slate has been to keep my gaze pointed toward the potential of the present and where it can lead.
Yet, as I write this, I can see the immense joy and fulfillment that can come from that 'clean slate'; how often do we give ourselves that gift of total newness?
It sounds good in theory. In practice? It's been difficult. I'm glad to have made the discovery for myself that a lot of my sadness and inaction stems from looking back into the past, pining for headier days, days that seemed sprinkled with the angel dust of limitless possibility and continual adventure.
When the hell did I become Blanche Dubois, living in a revery of ancient dreams? I'm embarrassed to admit it, but on my weaker days I have found myself, during these last two and a half years in LA, lying on my bed thinking about the 'good old days' in New York when I was 'young' and everything seemed to be so exciting.
This entry was inspired by the fact that I woke up with some of that familiar melancholy today, a result of a planned lunch with two former acting classmates from New York. The year was 1998, I came to the US for the first time and the world seemed like a ripe mango to plunge my gaping mouth into.
Problem. Why has the world not seemed like that as much lately? Is it a function of being 36 now, as opposed to 26? Surely not. Surely there can't be a magic demarcation line that exists, which, once crossed, leaves us in a state of placidity and boredom, yearning for the past? I passionately reject that notion.

More likely is that if there was a line like that which I did indeed cross, it was of MY OWN making. That on a daily basis my sense of excitement and adventure in my life is dependent entirely on ME. It is I who must choose to accept that every moment brings infinite creative potential, if and when I choose to stand up and grab it with both hands and pull it into the deepest part of me. Of course we are all in a constant state of co-creation with the outside reality of our lives. It is a given that outside forces have the power to leave us intensely happy and grief-stricken. But when it comes to feeling a consistent sense of fulfillment and adventure in our lives, we cannot look to anyone or anything but ourselves, our own imaginations and our own spirit for life. I need not yearn for the past; I need only become aware of the impulses, feelings and burning desire to create and to LIVE FULLY that pulsate beneath my conscious mind, the very stuff that propelled me to sit down and write this today.

Lunch with friends at one o'clock. There's nothing wrong with reminiscing. But I'm going to remember as we sit together that there's a lot more ahead than behind.