c'mon, sing like we used to...wake on up from your slumber. open up your eyes.

I was clearing out old notes on my phone and found some that go as far back as 2011 when I used an iPod touch. I found one written at 1:56am on January 23, 2011 with the title "To Do Someday." Reading it now, almost three years later, is slightly fascinating.

-visit yosemite

-get tattoos

-go backpacking

-perform in productions of of tick, tick, boom! and Les Mis

-go on a cross country road trip

-live in Laurel Canyon (or somewhere similar)

-go skinny dipping (preferably in a lake at night)

-have lots and lots of rescued animals

-have a job I love that allows me to serve/help others

-purchase a vintage VW Bug...and paint it blue (but get my license first)

-live in the woods/out in nature

-get passport

-travel to Europee 

-see Northern Lights

-visit Himalayas

I actually don't have a better adjective to describe the feeling that seeing this list brings about. It's like, quite a good amount of what's on it is stuff I thought would have happened by now. And I had absolutely no idea of what was ahead of me. I thought I'd let go of my inner vices back at Berkeley because after a month back in Los Angeles, Many Lives, Many Masters somehow played a huge role in snapping me out of the depression. I almost instantly accepted the fact that it was okay for me to come home, especially since I never felt truly ready to leave in the first place due to a complete lack of plans for the future. I'd thought I'd be able to look past that fact, but the environment of hardcore studying and partying all around me was overwhelming as I started to feel more isolated, missed people back at home, and had an intense yearning to spend my studying time with various spiritual texts and more time for a focused meditation practice.

And now, three years later, reading this list is sort of bittersweet. It's the perfect representation of the shift that took place starting in March 2011. It just reminds me of a former intense zest for life, totally and completely idyllic...perhaps naive. I don't know. Much of the list still rings true. I just feel a strange sense of numbness in regards to pretty much all of it. I'm not sure why, but that's probably normal? If I had to make a list right now off the top of my head, it'd read:

-get my first tattoo that I've wanted the past couple of years 
-establish less dependence on my family financially speaking and ultimately move out on my own
-with that opportunity, get in contact with the right sort of people who understand where I'm coming from with a lot of my past experiences and have an understanding of alternative methods and truths
-tell my whole story to someone I trust will understand
-somehow take a trip across the United States to visit every single national park for the first time
-go camping/stay in hostels 
-travel across the country by train
-make a list of all the amazing--almost unreal--places of nature here in this country and seek them out to experience them in person
-continue to study more about the relationship between the brain and the chakras (the physical with the mental/emotional/spiritual) and study these eastern sciences/medicines and ancient perspectives
-find and study the correlations between these perspectives with western psychology/psychiatry
-help myself grow stronger spiritually and continue regaining my confidence
-provide guidance for others from a place of love and understanding to help us continue the journey of awakening and remembrance 

As much as I want to get a passport and spend a lot of time seeing the rest of the world, I feel like I won't re-add that to my list until far off in the future. There is so much I still can--and still need to--do back here at home.

Aside from the tattoo, all the other "to-do's" are going to take a while to come about. But I do know that of all on the list, the first three are most significant to me at this moment in my life. And I must maintain hope that everything will work out...I must set out the intention, positive energy, and trust in order to manifest the results. After all, I did just that back in late February/early March 2011 to such an extreme that we all know what happened as a result. I mean, I've never written every single detail here...some of it is unbelievable. It takes a long time to explain. And I wouldn't be able to type it anyway. It's probably one of the only things I don't know how to write about when it comes to describing my personal experiences. Anyway.

I had inconceivably intense emotions and visualizations. Our thoughts and intentions truly can dictate our reality. Sure, the specifics of the "before" are events I never expected or could have imagined. But still. Technically, I asked for it. And the main purposes of the "results" I yearned for so desperately have indeed happened. It's all been a domino effect of sorts...and the more I see everything from the numerous sides and details, I am left stunned.

This universe, this Life, is just... amazing? beautiful? inconceivable? incomprehensible? intense? magical? complex? remarkable? phenomenal? miraculous? breathtaking?

No. There are no words.

It just...is.