Avett Brothers on the Rocks

As of late, most of my time is occupied by nursing school related activities or work. In those rare moments that I have "nothing to do" (aka nothing pressingly due right at THAT moment) I find myself catching up on sleep and recharging my batteries.

Along with that, I've been trying to come back to my center, to regain site of parts of myself that are lost when everything is so overwhelmed with this program. I've been trying to focus on being grateful, thankful, and enjoying the present.

While I can't say I thoroughly enjoy most of my life right now, I'm trying to love the moment that I'm in, and cherish it for what it is.

It's a huge work-in-progress. Looking within myself and meditating on many things is quite a huge task at hand, but it's one I'm working on, baby step by baby step.

With that said, I bought tickets to go see The Avett Brothers last night at Red Rocks. I've never watched them perform but was tantalized with comments from Memphis (one of the roomies) that their persona on stage is insurmountable. Thoroughly excited to head to the beauty of Red Rocks and spend the evening sipping wonderful craft beer with a great friend and enjoying beautiful, wonderful music under the brilliance of the sky.

Up first was a band called City and Colour. Wow! Great music! Halfway through one of their songs the crowd started to clap and go wild...looking over to our left, there was a man who waited for one of their particular songs (a love long, of course!) to drop down to one knee and propose. The warmth and love that flowed from the crowd was just amazing, and watching that happen, brought tears of happiness to my eyes. I LOVE love :-) The band finished playing the song instrumentally while the proposal was going on and then congratulated the two, dedicating the next song to them. Of course she said yes ;-) What a beautiful reminder of the goodness of life!

After City and Colour, the stagehands starting setting up....and one of the most wonderful things happened. It started raining. For 10 minutes, I sat in my seat, and got soaking wet. A feeling of angst and dread came over me. I hate being wet, my makeup was running off, and my hair was destroyed. Being at a point in life where I'm not happy with myself physically, I felt anxiety as the rain washed away my outer layer to expose the insecurity that lay beneath. But after about a minute of rain, I remember a conversation I just had a few days ago with a friend (of whom I actually don't remember who it was!). The friend said something about learning to let go, let God, and instead of running from the rainstorms in life, to enjoy that moment and let it flow and cleanse us. So I sat, and let the rain take away my outer layer of confidence and cleanse my soul. And it was painful. So very painful. I won't lie. And while I didn't quite dance in the rain...I tried to enjoy the moment, that rawness, the beauty, the purpose, and even the "pain".

What a beautiful way to strip me down before the show!

And not much later, The Avett Brothers came on.

Passion. That's how I would describe their performance. Imperfectly beautiful. Emotional. Raw.

The atmosphere, the songs, the lyrics, the energy, the passion, the love...I needed it all. And I soaked it in. I enjoyed watching the band let emotions take over and direct the show, enhance the energy, and shower the audience with love and gratitude.

So beautiful. So what my soul needed.

To let music, and passion, take over again, last night, was exactly what I needed.

I was reminded of my belief in true love and the hope for romance, reminded of how much passion should direct what is my life, reminded me of the beauty of imperfections, and started to heal over some of the heartache and longings on my soul.

Weeding out Happiness

One of my schroomies and I were talking about simplicity. Life is complexly simple a great majority of the time. And I think, especially as Americans, we have a tendency to emphasize the complexity instead of the simplicity.

I realize that on one hand, my life can't and won't be "simple" for a little while. But that doesn't mean I can't weed out the boldly complex.

One of the things that I value in life is happiness. And enjoyment. I think when we keep continually adding stuff into our lives, happiness can be weighed down. There's a lot to be said about simplicity.

I have been watching a documentary the past hour entitled "Enlighten Up!" Basically it's about a new yogi and his quest for understanding yoga and all that comes with it. He has a hard time grasping the "formation" that yogis always talk about and the spirituality that comes with yoga. He is visiting a yoga guru in India who is explaining to him what yoga really means. You see in India, yoga isn't about the physical aspect that we associate it here in the west. It's about connecting with God or if you don't believe in God, your true self. The guru at one point mentions that we need to strip our lives of the outerness that makes us unhappy.

I'm sensing a little bit of a theme.

One of my goals this next year is to start simplifying my life. Getting rid of the possessions and things I own that don't make me happy or don't mean anything to me. I want to start simplifying my life. I started by simplifying down my closet at home. Now I need to start simplifying everything else.

Hopefully as the year goes on, I will continue to update about this journey. Let's see what this adventure will bring....