Search This Blog

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Taking Risks

Well I know it's been a while since my last blog but just know that I never forget about this book or any of my readers. As we say all the time, life got busy and time slipped away. Since my last blog or post, I have reflected on the book its purpose. Will anyone care? Will anyone read it? Will it become a best seller and i can speak around the world? But then I realized something.... I care and that is all that really matters. If you do something for yourself to make you feel whole and possibly heal wounds, new and old, then it matters..

I watched myself these past couple of months loose sight of who I really am as a person. Do i try to hard to make something "fit" when it really should just be left alone. Do I work too much and maybe this is all I have in life? Could life really be just that- a job? Then I remember my grandfather and how proud he was of me till his dying day. He was so proud that I made something out of myself. He was the only one that believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. He never stopped asking me or pushing me to excel. Have a better life than he did and always take a risk.

I can only imagine the risk my grandfather took when he stepped forward on that day in 1943 to go half way around the world without any friends or family to Egypt and Tunisia to fight with the British in WWII. What bravery and an enormous risk at 24! I took me till 35 years old to get a passport and leave the country on vacation (thanks Erin and Kala) .. Now I can't get enough of Europe or any other destination. Life is about taking risk- professionally and personally. There are times i have taken a significant risk and it didn't work out. But i learned a little bit more about myself that i would have never known. I opened my heart and let life in. My grandfather opened his heart everyday of his life. He didn't care if people were mean to him, loved him or disliked him. He kept his heart open to lead a better more joyful life.

My grandfather risked it all to go to Egypt and he would tell you today if he was alive he does not have one single regret. The memories of that time was so vivid for him that he replayed some of the war missions to us before his death. I asked him one day" Grandpa, were you scared." He said " of course i was but if i didn't try it i would have been more scared of life." I guess we are a family of risks. My grandfather's father ( my great-grandfather) travel alone from Italy in 1916 on a boat for over a week with $5.00 in his pocket- no family, no friends. He took a risk. And it paid off.

I think about the times today and how my life is evolving. How my friends are evolving and family. And I feel proud of the person i have become today. I am not so sure i was proud of me back then when my grandfather always was. I was a hurt person by painful past scares and I didn't know how to handle them. So, i hurt people in exchange and showed no emotion. Until one day, right after my grandfathers death, when i didn't even recognize myself anymore. I lost my footing in life- cold, unemotional and scared to take any sort of emotional risk. Then I woke up and started to read the diary. It felt like a connection to something warm and loving like my grandfather. As cold as i had become, my grandfather could melt it away with his smile, laugh, words on a page and unconditional love for me. The more I read the diary the more I wanted to change and risk everything that i built to protect me. Life was about more than surface relationships or a big paycheck. Life was about opening your heart and truly being a whole person with limitless boundaries.

Its taken me 5 years or so since my grandfathers death to really understand who I am as a person and show people i have changed. I am so blessed to have the love of my family and friends who just never gave up on me. And I write this today to help shape the book and show you how a diary from so long ago can really change a person for the better. I have taken many risks and opened my heart to only be hurt. That's ok. It made me better because I can feel now and I would rather feel something than nothing at all..

I am starting to work on the book's outline and will be posting more...

if you like this blog, please forward it along

Much Love

Robin

No comments: