{ My Own Path }

It's nice because I've been surfing the internet tonight looking for something I didn't find... Me. Normally when I have a vision of something I want to make or do, I surf this wonderful ocean of creativity for inspiration and, more often than not, find someone doing or offering a much better version of whatever I was thinking of! It's been hard because the internet has taken me into the lives of some incredible women who have equally amazed and intimidated me. I am *so* attracted to women who exude this energy, who are comfortable in their own skin, that I study everything they do, write, wear... hoping to find that magical ingredient that would make me be like them. It actually sounds a little creepy written out like that and honestly, there is nothing sinister about it. I guess I have just been so uncertain about who I am that I've been looking to see if I can find a reflection of me in others. I contemplate the women they are and wonder what is it about them that makes it look so easy to be yourself. I crave that sense of belonging. Of knowing myself.

Tonight I was looking for that reflection. My inner critic was out too. But we were both unsuccessful because finally the answers are coming from inside of me, and they will only begin to appear with the words *I* type, and the pictures *I* post. I realise now that I was looking for the answers by trying to become someone else. Subconsciously I think I was trying to take a short cut - hoping that I could follow someone elses path instead of doing the hard work and carving out my own. The irony is that is the very reason I admire these women - because they are carving out their own path. Moreso it is the honesty with which they do it, and the level of intimacy and vulnerability exposed by them in the process. They are fearless with their dreams, fully exposing them to the judgement of others, so that others may share their spirit. Those are the qualities that make them so incredibly beautiful.

Normally I look and read with longing but tonight, for the first time , I see something in my mind's eye that belongs to me and I'm ready to start carving!