Quote of the Week

Source

 This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without wings. 

--Mevlana Rumi 

Quote of the Week

Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin.

--Tori Amos 

Quote of the Day

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“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”

--Paulo Coelho 

Quote of the Week

Source

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

--Mark Twain 

Quote of the Week

Source

“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.”

--Lewis B. Smedes 

Quote of the Week

Source

Source

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

--Anatole France 

Quote of the Week

Something comes up like bubbles to the surface, bringing up another part of ourselves that has been silent; that we were in the dark about. Lurking. Nightmares aren't my favorite thing. I want to feel safe, period. My soul wants to feel safe not terrorized. For many years, I shut down that place inside myself that needed to rage, cry, ask questions and basically just express herself. I made a conscious choice when I put 'Me and a Gun' on the record not to stay a victim anymore. The last thing I want to be known as is 'The Girl Who Got Raped'. The big turn around you make in your head is from victim to survivor.  It's about realizing, painfully, you've kept that voice inside yourself, locked away from even yourself. And you step back and see that your jailer has changed faces. You realize you've become your own jailer.  The idea is to rescue myself from the role of a victim. That I have a choice left. Though I can't change what has happened, I can choose how to react. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and locked up.  I think you have to know who you are, get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it.  I see the dream and I see the nightmare, and I believe you can't have the dream without the nightmare.  I think that the nightmares are telling me things about myself that I need to know. And I try to understand what they mean, so I can get to know something more about my soul.  I am finding that vulnerability gives me great strength, because you're not hiding anymore.

--Tori Amos 

Quote of the Week

Source

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. 

--Viktor E. Frankl 

"If Everyone Cared," Nickelback

From underneath the trees, we watch the sky
Confusing stars for satellites
I never dreamed that you'd be mine
But here we are, we're here tonight

Singing, "Amen I, I'm alive"
(I'm alive)
Singing, "Amen I, I'm alive"

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died

And I'm singing
Amen I, Amen I, I'm alive
Amen I, Amen I, Amen I
(I'm alive)

And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We'll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along

Singing, "Amen I, I'm alive"
(I'm alive)
Singing, "Amen I, I'm alive"

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died
When nobody died

And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died

We'd see the day, we'd see the day
(When nobody died)
We'd see the day, we'd see the day
(When nobody died)
We'd see the day
(When nobody died)

Finding Andromache

Leaving the familiar to go into the unknown is as alluring as it is daunting. The thought of my loved ones not being a short train or plane ride away scares the shit out of me. Alone at bed at night, sometimes I am filled with doubt and am convinced I should stay in the U.S. and "settle down". After all, I have opportunities here that a lot of people could only dream about. American Privilege. Sometimes I start to believe other people who say that I am a smart woman who has made a foolish decision to move to Turkey for an indeterminate amount of time for no reason other than answering "a call from deep within". It is an adventure, but an uncertainty nonetheless. 

And yet despite these doubts and looks of disappointment, I cannot give in to fear and doubts. I can no longer continually try to fulfill expectations that people have of how I should be. I cannot fall into the trap of complacency and safety. I need to let go…have and want to let go of these safety nets that weigh down my wings. I need to fall—or at the very least experience the sensations of falling—so that I can pull myself up and fly. I need to live and not just go through the motions of living. I need to live for myself instead of be a vessel for other people to live out their dreams. I have to make my own mistakes and not spend a lifetime trying to avoid making the mistakes that others have…mistakes that have defined them into the people that they are now. This lifetime is short enough to spend it worrying about reliving other people’s past, and it is long enough to spend it defined by regrets.

At times I feel like I’m too old for this “finding myself” bit; after all, I did it for a couple of years after high school. But logically, I know that it cannot be true, for since the dawn of time, people have struggled to find themselves. Some have spent a lifetime doing so. Age is irrelevant, as “self” itself doesn’t truly age. 

The hardest part about trying to live up to legacies is that in so doing, you could easily lose track of who you are. To follow in other people’s footsteps more often than not entails setting aside your wants until you just wake up one day and realize that you don’t know what you want. You’ve felt it for so long that somehow, you now believe that your wants have ceased to matter. 

Who am I without my so-called intelligence? Would I still be me? Would I be less of myself had I been more acquainted with the letter grade C than A? Would I still be the golden (grand)child had I chosen writing over game theory, and creativity over pragmatism? What if I believed in kindness and in humanity more than I do in prestige and profits? 

Maybe at the end of this journey and adventure, I'll come back to where it all began. Maybe I already have whatever it is I'm searching for--whatever I feel is missing in my life but have yet to be able to name. Or maybe, just maybe, whatever I'm looking for is on the other side of the world...waiting to be explored. Perhaps in searching for Hector, I'll end up finding Andromache. 

So I'll keep walking, no matter how hesitant my steps. No matter how many times I falter or fall, I will get up and keep walking. I can feel the sun even as I feel uncertainty. I just gotta keep facing forward. 

Istanbul...

...I'll be seeing you soon!