After a few days of heavy rain storm, Southern California’s peaks finally received a much-needed helping of fresh powder. It was absolutely breathtaking. Snow truly does beautify everything it touches.
My family and I headed up the mountains early Saturday morning and surprisingly had a smooth ride up. It’s been years since my last visit to Big Bear, and I had a wonderful time with my family bob sledding and having snow ball fights! Regardless of age, snow brings out the inner kid in every one!
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
There are two sides of me: the free-spirit risk taker and the obsessive control freak.
On one hand, the first Adrielle has grown a reputation for pulling spontaneous mischiefs with whoever she’s with. From illegally hiking up to the Hollywood sign to spontaneously getting a tattoo after a Sunday brunch along the Venice Boardwalk, she is a person who craves adventure, who jumps before she thinks, determined to have those horses run through her veins, no matter how momentarily they may stay.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, the other Adrielle always wants to be in the know. She’s the one who hates surprises, the one who can’t stand being in the dark because she’s terrified of what might happen once she’s left face-to-face with uncertainty and the unknown. The one who rarely lives in the present because she’s too caught up either dwelling in the past or daydreaming about the future. The one who creates timelines and checklists on how she’s going to live her so-called “life.” The one who over-analyzes every single detail and overthinks herself to exhaustion in order to protect herself from a potential ambush.
You see, there are two Adrielles, the fearless girl who lives and the cautious one who exists. And truth is, neither of them has it all together.
When I was younger, I thought I’d have everything going for me by the time I was the age I am now. But the deal with life is, it’s unpredictable, always changing, filled with unexpected drops and loops. And within my brief 23 years of being in this beautiful world, I realized that most people live life within their comfort zone and hardly go near the edge. Why? Because it’s when we walk closer to the edge that life gets frighteningly chaotic and downright overwhelming. Nothing is more terrifying than knowing how quickly everything can fall to crap.
And it is at this stage, when life becomes an uncontrollable whirlwind, that I start retreating, where I sprint back to my unscathed shell instead of pushing through the discomfort and pain. It is at this level where I manage to convince myself to believe that staying within the lines of my comfort zone will somehow grant me contentment. That having a body that has never been chipped or a heart that has never been broken will earn me the most satisfaction by the time I’m six feet under, nailed shut inside that coffin. That not having a scarred soul will somehow catapult me on top of the leader board once my final breath escapes my lungs.
What I didn’t realize is that on a long enough timeline, the survival rate does drop to zero. What I didn’t realize is that none of us will make it out here alive, so I might as well make the most of it, whether I’m in gutter or on top of the world. What I didn’t realize is that those nights where I cried myself sleep, where I felt most vulnerable and raw because of the blows that life throws at me are reason enough for a celebration because I didn’t allow the fear of getting burned and hurt override the fear of living, the fear of loving.
What I didn’t realize is that every shed tear is another battle scar. That every letdown is an opportunity to turn over a new leaf. That every mistake is a lesson learned. That every hurdle I overcame will only give me additional strength for the next one.
From this day forward, I promise to start embracing the mess, to welcome the chaos. It’s time to free myself from the obsession of always wanting control, to let go, to let the ball cross over to the other side of the court. It’s time to ride the wave, to go with the flow, to let the chips fall where they may and live life the way it was meant to be: out loud.
I think most of us are guilty of constantly being terrified of what comes next. We never really know what’s right around the corner. The unknown is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of life to embrace, and as Chuck Palahniuk phrased it best,” our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.” As humans, we have a tendency to hold on so tightly to our past because it’s familiar, because we recognize it, because there are no surprises.
The future possesses a much greater likelihood that the rug will be unexpectedly pulled under our feet. When talking about the future, anything can happen. The unknown makes 100% of the pie. We can get sick. We can lose our jobs. The plane we’re in can crash. Our significant others can reject us. We can have our loved ones taken away from us, temporarily or otherwise. Every thing is fair game when we deal with the future. No one is exempt, and nobody likes that. I don’t know about you, but I’m not Zen enough to live in the present. My mind either functions by reminiscing on the past or worrying/getting excited about the future.
But you know something? The Future never really comes. One way or another, it becomes disguised as Today. And what’s even remarkable is that we have more resilience and strength than we often give ourselves credit for. The fact that you’re reading this is proof of that. So far, you’ve survived all the blows and curve balls this life has thrown at you, no matter how long or how brief you may have been living on this Earth.
And honestly, I think we need to start shifting our focus on that. Let’s forget about what can happen tomorrow, or a week, or a year, or a decade from now. Let’s give ourselves a break from overthinking everything, because more often that not, this never leads to anything good. Let’s stop resisting and learn accepting. We must remember the fact that no matter how difficult life may be, we’re still standing. We’re still here.
At the end of the day, no one is exempt from pain and suffering, and at times, this can get downright overwhelming. Yet despite this reality, we find a way to cope, push through, and persevere. We’ve all experienced one form of tragedy or another, but we made it through. No matter how rattled we get, we somehow find our feet again. I don’t know about you, but I find that quite spectacular.
My present self is pretty damn well proud of my past selves for not giving up, and I’m sure I’ll make my future self feel the same.
When I was a little girl, my momma told me that my name was intended to be “Anicka Nadine” at birth. Although I do love my legal name (“Adrielle Justine”), I often wonder what it would be like to have the name Anicka Nadine. Hence, the name of my blog!
Here I will document all things fashion, travel, and good eats! Let’s get this adventure started!
anickanadine.wordpress.com 