…this is how I learn – who I am, who I need to be. It’s through the trials and challenges in my life that I learn the peace and strength within to walk down my own path.

I may not always make the choices you’d like me to make. I may not always make the smart – or right – decision. I may seem foolish to you at times; you might wonder if I lack common sense.

And I know you worry because you want me to be happy. You want me to succeed and stride across my world without trouble. You worry because sometimes trouble seems to follow me around. You’re afraid it might catch up with me someday, and I won’t be able to handle it.

But this is how I learn – who I am, who I need to be. It’s through the trials and challenges in my life that I learn the peace and strength within to walk down my own path.

I’ve spent time with sadness and pain. I’ve danced too close to the edge of my own darkness, and that scares you. But I live my life wide open, raw, unshielded, and when I feel the sunlight warm my skin, I am nothing but beauty and joy. When I feel my love’s heart beating quickly, I am the pulse of life.

I walk so closely to the precipice because I am imperfect, because I see all the perfect and wonderful about the people who have won my care, and yet I know we are all flawed, I know that the greatest danger in opening my heart to someone is what I don’t see in them.

I will always risk myself in pursuit of— in support of— the amazing and divine in people. Were I to play it safe, I would not learn such things as I have, and I would risk the loss of what’s amazing and divine in me.

You remember me when I lived in fear and anger, when I was blind to the good in the world, and in people. I remember those days, I remember who I was, and the difference between then and now is this:

Once upon a time, I walked in the darkness just out of light’s reach; now I walk in light. And when light shines upon us, we both reflect it back out, and cast shadows.

Once upon a time, I walked in the darkness and saw mostly sadness, unfairness, and injustice in the world, and I felt dark within; now I walk in light, and I feel lightness and peace within.

So though you see me struggle here and there, and though I sometimes stumble, it is because we are all imperfect people living in an imperfect world. When we look for the beautiful, the wonderful, the grace in those we love, we find it. And inevitably we also find flaws and pain — to dance in the light with those we love means we risk losing ourselves in each others’ shadows.

Every bad decision, every mistake I’ve made — I made because I’ve decided to see the greatness in this world, in people, and because I wasn’t ready for the shadows that also came to light.

But when I step forward, each time, every mistake, every pain brings me closer to peacefulness and quietude. Once trial was my jailor, now it is my mentor.

So do not fear… I am not lost in a dark wilderness. The moments of sadness I encounter in my life guide me back to wonder, and that is where I now live… and thrive.