Enthused.

So, there’s a secret bursting to have its story told.

Oh, it drives me crazy, keeps me up late even when I can finally go to sleep at a decent hour (relatively speaking) for the first time in days, and cuts me open, flooding my senses with both fretful apprehension and fulfilling excitement. Each morning, I wake up whimpering to my modestly obnoxious alarm, bemused to find my sheets twisted halfway to the floor (seriously, again?!) and a ginormous knot of hair in the back of my head.

No, I’m not sharing my bed with someone.

But I am excited about this new thing I'm trying.

You see, it's the first time I’m dedicating time to find a place for my own two feet, not someone else’s. I’m not battling to help save an organization from dwindling finances or pursuing recognition for the untold stories of unheard voices. I’m not protesting the continually undercut funds for the language programs at an engineering and athletics-focused school or protecting the naïve mistakes of my residents. I’m not falling for a person unwilling to give me the same in return.

Instead, I’m redirecting that focused, unconditional energy inwards, where it’s needed the most right now.

I’m reining in my restlessness excuses not to grow up, excuses not to pursue what makes me deliriously happy. I’m daring to think that what I want is actually possible…for the sole reason being because I want it. I’m focusing on details that’ll keep me hastily jotting down jumbled thoughts on a yellow legal pad well past 3 AM.

I’m asking myself tough questions. Over and over again, until I admit the answers.

Walking back tonight, I suddenly realized that the darkness of night no longer bothers me because I can look up and smile at the stars. They twinkle back, promising me the unknown delight of another night, a prelude to the new day.

I’m championing my own cause, and the irony is that it’s so I can champion the causes of others.