**For a seminar class I had to write about a recent "learning experience" I had and what came out was something that ended up meaning a lot. If you ever wondered wtf I was doing in Cali or why I came home so soon, or maybe just need some inspiration, read on....☮
A recent learning experience I had which produced a profound effect on me was not the kind of learning one does "on purpose," rather, it was more of an accidental lesson I had to learn, as are often life's most valuable ones.
This past semester I had taken off to study film at a school in Los Angeles, something I'd always wanted to pursue. After getting out of a series of unhealthy relationships the previous spring, I took it upon myself to get away from the safe world I had always inhabited and venture off into the unknown. I usually see these unknown territories in life as opportunities for personal growth, and I was in dire need of a substantial experience in which I could "find myself" again, as cliche as it sounds. I had lost who I felt I had always been by surrounding myself with people who were bad for me. People I gave my heart to who couldn't care less and friends who gossiped behind my back and called it "concern." Now it was time to rediscover my talents and passions, and reclaim for myself the warm, sensitive, smart and amazing woman I know I have always been.
Living in LA was all I had hoped it would be, but incredibly challenging. The full time acting classes were emotionally draining but intensely fulfilling. Slowly but surely I was beginning to feel good about myself again. Little did I know the greatest challenge I would face was yet to come.
One night walking back to my apartment my boot slipped and as I grasped my hand to break my fall it was too late. I landed directly on my face. My bottom two teeth punctured my lower lip and pierced through it, and my mouth gushed with blood. The upper half of my lip was cut basically in half. I had to immediately go to the emergency room.
I had stitches in five different places and went through a grueling process of doctor visits and corrective dental surgeries. My arm was in a cast, my face I thought would never look the same. Unable to speak or eat properly, my jaw, for all intensive purposes, did not function.
I became very bitter about what had happened in the days to come. I began to realize that by continually asking "why me" I was not only asking the universe why I had had such an accident, but more broadly, why I had gone through all the personal traumas leading up to my trip. Why me? Why had I lost so many friends and lovers I had lost track? Why had I gone through such pain? Why California? What was I really doing here, and what would I do now, that all of this had happened? Out of one of the darkest summers/"falls" of my life, I began to slowly see the world in an incredibly new light. Day after day I sat in my bed in LA on so much pain medication I would sleep entire days and nights, unable to eat or speak or even think. And then each day I started to get a little better. And slowly but surely it was time to come home.
What I learned from California was not only a better sense of who I am as a person but my capacity to overcome personal hardships and find tremendous inner beauty out of the worst incidents. Ever since I came home I have slowly began to look at life from a completely new view. I feel stronger than I ever thought or imagined a person could be. I no longer care what people perceive me to be because I have known exactly who I am from day one. I know of my passions and my talents, I know I am beautiful and smart and there's no one on the planet that could validate that for me but myself. I now look at life as a blessing, and I am grateful to be alive.
Every person I have met has taught me something, although sometimes it takes me a little longer to see the lesson unfold. Through a twist of fate I gained the largest sense of faith I've had in my LIFE and today I feel incredibly lucky and self-assured. I know life will be hard sometimes, I know there will be people who attempt to mislead me or break my stride - there will be times where I take another unexpected fall in whatever sense of the word. There will be moments where I will feel lost and afraid. But I possess an immense sense of purpose today, and an extreme sense of calm. Everyday I shrug off the dead weight that was my past and feel intensely grateful to be myself. I feel like that's faith.
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