I was away for what felt like months, but coming back to my beautiful Los Angeles felt as though my magical European trip didn't even happen. Driving down the congested Los Feliz Boulevard feeling like we had vortexed back into reality without skipping a beat, we felt a wave of sadness. Yes, I missed home, but I fell in love with Ireland wayyyy more than I had anticipated. The culture was old and vibrant. The country was green and untouched. The people were happy and loving life. As the days went by I kept asking myself what I needed to do to be that happy. What do I need to do to feel every bit of what God has to offer me? I was real frustrated. It was upsetting and unnerving that I knew I was missing a huge ingredient to the happiest cottage pie that this life is. I looked up Maslow's Pyramid of needs, further researched minimalism to create a clean and open space for myself. Soon I became overwhelmed with changing my physical life. And at that moment, I started to have this intense realization that I'm wasting away.
Naturally, I call my mom and cry to her. I found myself in my car with my King Taco burrito that I had been craving for days. Yes, boo. Full on crying, mouth full of carne asada. I'm sitting there after work telling my mom how I feel incomplete and unsatisfied with this subpar life. Crying about how much I missed dancing and that it's all I wanna do. I had a conversation with my grandmother prior to my nervous breakdown. Backstory: my grandmother is going through chemo to kill the cancer in her body and she has such a strong faith in God. We get to talking how she's happy with who she is and loves the life she's lived. It got me thinking about how my life will go. Now, back to the conversation with my mom. I'm telling her all of this, burrito in hand, and asking her who am I? Dang it mom, WHO AM I?! Classic mom response: Who do you wanna be? *SOB* She continues to calm me down and reassures me that I've got this and says, "just go for it, you have so much talent and not just because you're my daughter". So, this conversation ends up this great pep talk, but WOWZA! I was gone 16 days and I felt like I had lost touch with myself.
There's this book I've been reading You are a Badass by the amazing Jen Sincero and she's just so open and honest about living your life without doubt and just being awesome. She says in her book that most people live in a misconception of someone else's beliefs. Then she goes on and talks about the "G-word". Yes, the Almighty Father. She correlates all these other words with God: The Big Guy, The Universe, Spirit, Higher Power. I totally get what she means by keeping an open mind, but for me it's definitely God. I had to go back and look over this chapter after this weekends service. I am still learning about my place here in this life and what my relationship with God is and what that looks like to me and I'm passionate about it. In reading scripture and diving into my faith I've come to the understanding that I deserve to live life abundantly. That is what God intends for all of us. He desires what we desire in our hearts, He knows our strengths and weaknesses and He is not at all surprised by them because He created us. Tonight's service was about "missing the point". Like when you have a conversation with someone and you both are trying to make different points and each miss one another. I was missing the point. I was making Me the center of my life and not God. All of my life I was taught about karma and doing for others to get good with God. If I prayed every night and confessed my sins every week, I'd be in God's good graces. That's not the God I've come to know. The God I know didn't rescue us by works, He rescued us by Grace and that's it. My pastor explained it perfectly tonight, "When you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning you are loved by Jesus passionately and after your day goes by and you look at yourself in the mirror before bed you are passionately loved by Jesus, none of the events in between can change that."
That's who I want to be. A well rounded, passionate, kind, motivated by love, dance obsessed and compassionate person. The question that has been engrained in my head since I was a kid "Who do you want to be?" has finally been answered. I feel like a blazing fire that can do anything. To live in joy and to love unconditionally, that is God's glory. I enjoy traveling, so I'll do more of that. I feel most alive when I'm dancing, so I'll dance as much as I can. Doing things for others makes me happy, creating more relationships, mending and strengthening the ones I already have. I will continue to explore my happiness. No more doubt, stress and anxiety about the superficial components of this societal life. I've never felt more free! That's not the end. I wish that's all it was and I could live happily ever after. The reality is, it's going to take work every day. Normally that would have put me back in a funk, but I'm so grateful and inspired to discover who I am meant to be. I'm challenging myself to walk this life with more gratitude and hope.
Thank you for walking along side me.
Love, Dezi
