Sleepless

Today is 2010's swan song ... I am in Paris, where it is currently 4:30 am, give or take quelque minutes. My parents have brought me and some family friends here as part of their very generous nod to my 40th birthday ... which I spent largely on an airplane on Tuesday. Next to an off-duty pilot, which was comforting -- he slept peacefully through fairly turbulent turbulence, and so I took my cues from him.

Forty. It's been quite a journey getting here -- a dizzying array of ups, downs, and sideways'. The highs have been extraordinary, the depths I've sunk to terrifying, and I have emerged strong and smart and capable and ready to manifest my present and future in the best way possible. Certainly there will be steps backwards, but I strive to take many more forward as I put into use the many lessons I've learned along the way. I once thought that was what my thirties were meant to be about; the closer I got to this decade, the more certain I became that in fact forty is the beginning of the best years. I hope I don't sound like a motivational coffee mug.

This past year has been one of beginnings and endings - very bittersweet. I've been using that word a lot lately to describe my current situation - and it really is that. I so look forward to sweet taking center stage, but I realize I have to be patient and to accept the fact that I can not control anyone's destiny or feelings besides my own. That realization has been decades in the making. I wish I could convince those who need convincing that the challenging, sad, or seemingly insurmountable phases do not last forever and that tranquility is attainable, but I can not. Just as no one could "convince" me of the aforementioned realization until I was ready - ready to relinquish decades of misplaced guilt and regret and fears that could not be assuaged no matter how much logic I attempted to embrace. My emotions have always taken over and I think I've feared letting that not be the case because on some plane, overriding my feelings with intellect felt dangerous.

Now that I realize I can update this blahg from here, I hope to do so a few more times before our triumphant return to the states on Tuesday.

For now, bonsoir, buenos noches, buona sera, ar labu nakti,leilatov. Now you know what the address above means. xoL