I Definitely Do NOT Have It All Together....

I feel like I have a lot to say right now. Way more than I have time, space or my reader's attention for. Today has been tough. I'm exhausted, I didn't get to the gym, I dropped my blackberry underwater, I hurt someone very close to me, my head aches and I have an endless amount of laundry waiting for me at home. Funny that just 36 hours ago, I found myself utterly content, at peace with myself and the world around me. This blog post was supposed to be about that peace I had found walking through Central Park, a peace that I had yet to find here in this city full of honking horns, blaring sirens, chatty people, long work hours, loud cab drivers and incessant commotion. While I have come to love all of this "noise," I also knew that it's necessary to be able to escape it all, to find a silence that allows you to reflect on the countless hours you've spent turning wheels, talking, walking, watching and making plans.

I'm a big planner. Anyone that knows me well knows that I make plans days before an actual event...I even like to make plans to make plans...unfortunately, I am more planner than I am spontaneous being. I even made a plan to go and find this peace. Armed with my camera and an unusually sunny day, I headed up 45 blocks from the East Village to Central Park. This jaunt started out as expected, smiling at the other hundreds of New Yorkers who found there way to the one green solace in this city. As I got deeper into the park, the quieter it became, the less people surrounded me, and the more I was able to escape into a world that seemed so far away from the hustle and bustle of an everyday life in New York City. The Resevoir of Central Park might possibly be my most favorite place in this city. Not only because it's gorgeous and profound and speaks of the romance that this city affords, but also because it's solace is remarkable. It's so silent there you can hear the runner coming up behind you, breathing heavily and stomping away at the gravel path. It's so silent that you are practically forced to look around and think a million different soul-searching thoughts...

this City is as amazing as everyone says it is...

how far I have come from where I have been....

how much I still have to learn...

remorse for the girl I once was...

excitement for whom I know I will be in the future...

thank you God...

thank you again God...

i wish I had someone here to see this with me...

i need this time alone...

do I enjoy being alone too much...

the ice melting reminds me of my own oldself melting away....

even the birds came out today to enjoy...

how long will I live here...

I feel as though I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be...

thank God...

I feel completely at peace in this silence...

how can i put these feelings into words...

how long will this peace last....

thank God....

So there it was...a circling, thrilling, worrying, flood of emotions brought on simply by complete silence. At the depth of all of this, I felt true happiness, true completeness...for a brief and fleeting moment, all the world was good, every step had lined up...whatever track I was on seemed to be the right one.

and then....today came...

Do you ever know when you wake up that you just don't think it's going to be a great day? Sure you had enough sleep and your hair seems to be having a good day...but there is just a tinge of something that feels looming, you didn't check something you should have, you didn't think about consequences, you didn't think far enough ahead, you just didn't plan. I hadn't planned on today being like a stick in the mud, but it was. In the past, days like this happened a whole lot more often than they do now...but you know what? They happen. They happen for all the reason I listed above. They happen because, well, I just don't have my shit together. I make mistakes and more often than not, I find myself thinking I could have done it better...I will do it better next time. Inevitablely, however, there will come another day like this and I'll probably find myself thinking the same things. But you know what? another day like this past Sunday will come as well. A day where I will step out of this messy, crazy city and into the calming, tranquil resevoir and I'll find that peace. That peace that makes me think, all is good, all is right, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

A smart person reminded me this weekend of a great quote - "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." Well, way too often, as I said, I plan. I plan out my life and what I want it to be and what I want it to look like. I plan out blog posts only to be slapped with a not so peaceful feeling. There is no way we can plan out our lives because they are messy. We mess up, we make mistakes, we fall down, we disappoint. But you know, I read once that it is the "slogging through the messy struggle of life (that) can yield moments of pure happiness." Without struggle, how do we know bliss? Without mess, how do we know clean and orderly?

So I write this to you all, anyone who has ever felt the need for forgiveness for the mess that their day may have made. This is also to me, to know that for every mess, there I will be, strong enough to pick up my crazy heart and give it one more try.