Full Circle

It’s funny how life has a way of coming full circle.

When we are young we do things the way we please. It’s mostly because it’s the only way we know how – to listen to our heart. We are unadulterated by societal pressures and opinions, the very ones that have the power to take ourselves away from us.

Be yourself – we spend so much of our adult life preaching this, trying to practice it. If you told your 5 year old self this, you would probably be confused and rightfully so in thinking, but how can you be anybody else?

But you soon find out how easy it is to slip into conformations and submit to compliance, right? We’ve all been there, in those instances where we lose trail of what we want amidst the crowd of a million other wants, so much so that we even lose sight of who we are.

Around a couple of years ago, I had one such moment. As dramatic as it may sound, I was looking in the mirror. I was looking with a purpose, for a purpose, to look into my own eyes, stare right at them. My eyes, for which I get a million compliments, I had never  really looked into them. Sure I looked at myself in the mirror when I got ready, and I’ve look at my pictures and photos, but I had never really looked into myself. It’s then that I realized how much I had not noticed my own self. I would think I had lost myself, but there I was, right there, in the depth of my eyes,  the life of me as it was meant to be. Something changed for me right then, and it led me to make a series of changes in my life, embarking on a new journey of self-awareness.

Today, I had one more such moment.

Have you ever had a feeling where you know something is missing in your life? You know the one where you can’t say what it is because everything seems great, it’s all going well, and yet there is this unsettling feeling eating away inside you. It felt as though I was looking for something, searching frantically, not knowing what exactly it was that I was looking for.

Then today, while I was watching the final dance sequence in Step Up 2: The Streets, a movie I’ve watched too many times to count, the one that inspired me to attempt learning Street dancing, the very sequence I memorized to the best of my ability to replicate in college dance festivals – I had tears in my eyes, out of nowhere, for no reason at all. Or maybe all the reason I needed – to find out what was I missing – Culture.

When I was younger I felt very strongly about culture, code, and community – and I let myself be an active part of it, physically, vocally, and emotionally. I would let myself be consumed by my curiosity and love for the culture in sports and dance, the lifestyle it brought, the stories it sought.

Somewhere along it was I who got caught, and I who lost, that excitement I felt when I belonged to that culture, that community. That is what is missing.

I talk a lot about culture, it’s importance, and my love for it, all along not realizing my need for it, my need to belong to it. I wasn’t able to understand why I am drawn to it. But how could I not be? It is what taught me the meaning in life.

So it would only make sense that today, when I am driven by my own purpose in life, that this sense of culture is what guides me on. Now that I’ve been morphing into the sneaker culture I realize it is not only for my own love for it, but more so because of my need for it – the stories that bind it – music, dance, sports – culture, code, community.

There’s a reason why things happen when they do – signals, messages – you just have to pay attention to them – for they are signs, serving as reminders – pointing to the meaning of your life, for you – back to when it all began, where it all began – your culture, your code, your community.

It’s funny how life has a way of coming full circle.