Fuck It

June 9, 2019

They say in life there’s a season for everything.

I’ve been wondering if that means that once a season changes, is it indefinitely over? Or does that metaphorical year run its course again and you get to go back and revisit those seasons with more oomph and a little more bad-assery because you’re older?

‘Cause I think I may have figured out what causes the detrimental state of stagnation in life….it’s that some of us live out only one cycle; one year. Once we’ve experienced it all, we just give up and coast.

But we coast at a cost.

There’s an undercurrent always brewing just beneath the surface waiting to topple us over and suck us into the vortex of change. For the reality is, we need to revisit every season over and over again with fresh eyes and new arsenal.

I thought of the people I’ve met along the way that inspire me the most. It’s been the ones who at some point in their life (usually in their later years) wake up one day and just say fuck it….I’m doing what I’ve always dreamt of doing. I’m going to check off my bucket list, or give up my job and travel the world, or take a year and just figure my shit out. I’m going to immerse myself in a hobby, change careers or climb the summit of Everest. Whatever it is, big or small, it’s that whispering call asking us to live out the destiny of a particular season that got pushed aside because life got in the way.

Not too long ago I met a gentleman who was extremely successful in his career and one day he experienced the fuck it itch…told his wife that he was going to open a vineyard and make the best wine this country had to offer. In his sixties he sold his company, moved to Italy, became an apprentice to one of the country’s greatest wine makers for three years and then took that knowledge and returned here to live out his dream. To fully and unapologetically ride the waves of his passion.

To revisit the season of courage and chasing dreams we’ve all, at some point had, but have perhaps forgotten to pursue. To push away from stagnation and pull toward a new season. A season where everything feels more alive, more vibrant. Where the smells are stronger, the colours more poignant, the fears palpable to the tongue. And each person has their own fuck it list, but the act of reliving a seasonal cycle is the same.

It’s about living life.

In a conversation with my “person”, I recently shared a secret that I think confused her a little and scared me because I was actually acknowledging it and voicing it. I realized that I may have skimmed over a really important season in my life….essentially my “summer” (which makes sense why I’m so drawn to fall and winter…the reclusive, earthy closing of the moon cycles where everything is calmer and the energies are like a subtle breeze on the back of your neck)…

I did love this season a little when I was much younger, but I lost its fervour and its carefree healing properties. The spontaneity that comes with a young, carefree heart. The season of uninhibited fun, daring, standing on a moving train roof kind of freedom that comes with courage and a lack of fear. I think we all, in some way, fall prey to the world of adulthood and responsibility in which Peter Pan disappears into Neverland and we become civilized, boring human beings. But I miss some aspects of the old Sabrina that died too soon and whatever little was left was buried deep within the soil.

It’s not to say I need to become the woman I once was, but I definitely need to resurrect the spirit I once had. The one that propelled me to do crazy things and feel unequivocally alive. I accept that gone are the days when I would race cars or scale cemetery fences with friends or jump on the back of a stranger’s bike and go riding through the mountains of Italy. The thing is, the ingredient to living through a season like this is through the very ingredient that gets pushed away over time….fearlessness. And fearlessness comes in many forms. When you are young it leaps from a place of confidence and carefreeness, but when you’re older it changes drastically and needs to be launched from a pad of complete and utter confidence and a zero-fucks attitude.

Now, in my forties, like I said I won’t be doing half the things my younger version did because I’m also wiser; however, I do need to dig deep and find the courage to hold hands with the goddess of confidence. She will be the catalyst for my re-entering into a new cycle of seasons. By her side, I can now say I will not fear doing the things I once believed, for a few too many years, I should or couldn’t do. She will hold my hand and carry me to the cliff where I will come face to face with who I want to be, whether it brings out the best or the worse in me. She will hold my hand through the fear laden pathways that scare me because I can’t see what’s around the corner, for I will trust the process and have faith that she will never let me go. She will hold my hand at the shoreline of a beautifully chaotic raging storm and allow me to dive deep into the angry waters to wash away my insecurities and fears and watch me as I jump the waves and laugh like a child does when she is one with nature. Fearless in the face of possible dangers.

For it all comes down to walking through the fires, storms, lightening and scorching sun that we learn to grow. It’s when you say fuck it…I’m going to jump off that cliff into the waters. Fuck it…I’m going to go topless again on the beach like I once did and I don’t care if I don’t look like I did 20 years ago. Fuck it….I’m going to make love in the rain because I’ve yet to do that and if I die tomorrow, I don’t want to have that as my last regret. Fuck it…I will bare my soul even in the face of rejection because I am love and sometimes we need to allow love drip from our mouths at any cost. Fuck it…I will lay down the armour and expose myself to life’s elements, even if it kills me, if it means I am standing for something, at the very least standing for myself. Fuck it… I will strip bare, in every sense of the word, and if the world accepts it then great, if it doesn’t, then so be it. Because what once was based on fearlessness and the carefree winds of innocence, now comes from confidence and albeit with a trembling heart, a much stronger one, scarred and bruised but more poignant than ever. For now, as it stands, the rewards are so much greater because now we know the costs involved.

The victory is always the same…complete freedom in the arms of uninhibited aliveness. And one can only feel alive when they can feel the seasons….the sun burning your skin, the gentle breeze of the autumn air that smells like pumpkins and spice, the wet snowflakes the rests on the softness of your cheek and melt on the tip of your tongue and in the smell of the reawakening earth that slips through your open hand outstretched to the new sun.

This is living. These are the fuck it seasons for the fuck it year cycle. And fuck it, I’ll be damned if the rewards are not worth the chances one must take in order to experience the very force that life has to offer.

✌🏻