Through

2011. A number. A year. 365 days. Moments divisible by you, by me, in different ways. What has it meant for me? Memories, evolution, realisations, meetings with truth, endings, beginnings. Change.

This year has found me go to a foreign country for the first time, and what an experience that was. What a blessing it was. Three weeks of New Caledonia. Three weeks of joy, franglais, growing up, heart-seeking and heart-finding. And it's proven to be true. What you ask for is what you get.

It is the same law that applies to my relationships. I have found in them what I have asked them to be. Love was reaffirmed. And I say that because it had seemed to me important to doubt it until I was sure I understood and measured what others felt for me. But I was mistaken to think so. To accept love when it is given, not to question it, is one of the most profound and simple pieces of wisdom shared with me by one of my best friends. It is, as it is. Just let it be.

I have to remind myself of that so that I do actually let go, because my tendency is to hold on and think things over too much; to doubt what I know and confuse myself. Clearly the answers must come from elseplace, not my own learned patterns.

And now we have moved on to the 2012th year since the beginning of the count. Last year was plein de rires and some tears. I feel the wiser though, having gone through them. Hardship teaches. So does joy. We get to choose our teacher, yet sometimes we fail to realise who we have really chosen. I know I went through periods where I simply didn't know what I was doing. I have made peace with the discomfort of not knowing exactly what I was doing though, because for the first time, I have had to step out of my comfort zone again and again, and thus redefine my boundaries. And I was told in New Caledonia of a saying uttered by a Greek philosopher. The more I know, the less I know. I have felt this because my mind has expanded and allowed me to accept new people, new habits, new thoughts. Yet with this variation in what can be, I realised there is so much potential for difference, for what is not known, unknowable even. Where I am going used to be a simply answerable question. Now, it is but a recognition that I don't know. Must I be heading somewhere, I ask? For the ease of thinking and expression, I find it comfortable to think that I am going somewhere positive. That said, upon closer examination, there's hardly a set path through to it. And no map. But there's something. Drive. Something.

So what do I choose for those that surround me, and those who can hear me from miles? Love? Joy? Peace? Freedom? All of these things are given. They are already there. What we have to learn, over and over until we learn, is choice. Responsibility. So I choose this year that we collectively make conscious choices to have that which we need; to be who we are.