For a long time I was very similar to my sister, I followed in her footprints if you will. This wasn’t an intentional decision on my part to become more like her it just kind of happened that way. We have similar interests, and have for as long as I can remember. We have both been blogging for a long time and our current blog incarnations and online personae developed independently of each other but are also somewhat similar.

I have never consciously emulated her, but I think I do to a degree. Onyx has said he thinks this is because I see her as someone who has her life together, who has taken control, and that’s what I want to do. Maybe that’s true, or maybe I just want to emulate her in the way a younger sister looks up to her elder, or maybe it is something else entirely. I’m really not sure.

Now it seems like every major decision I make is one she has made in one way or another, and maybe these are things everyone has to go through, but it seems more specific than that. Even leaving my relationships and coming to Juneau for a while is something she did, though I didn’t know that until I was doing it and she mentioned she did the same thing.

To a point I don’t want to emulate her, I don’t want to find my life patterning similarly to how hers did ten years ago. While I don’t consciously make choices based on what she did I find myself over and over making similar choices. Is this simply because we are so similar, a fact which becomes more and more apparent to me, or is there something else at work here?

In the last few months to a year I have been thinking heavily about what it is I am wanting to do with my life, and the more I wonder the less I have any idea. I have all these ideas and interests and desires but haven’t had any direction or ability to figure out my path from point A (where I am) to point Z (where I want to be). The recent shaking up of my life and comfort has really made me think about everything anew, and I feel more on track now than I have before, which is really amazing.

For the longest time I could focus on school, it was all I knew, really, and my side focus was finding love because that was something I hadn’t really experienced. I found Onyx, I finished school, I found Marla, now those relationships are gone or changing and I’m back in my hometown, which is weird in and of itself. I love having time to think about me, and I’m glad I’m taking the time away from relationships to figure things out about past and future relationships to be sure not to make the same mistake.

Since I’ve been here the clouds of distraction are clearing and things are finally moving forward. I spoke with a piercer I’ve been coming to for around eight years about becoming her apprentice and she agreed! I’m overjoyed, though the apprenticeship will not begin immediately it will happen. This is an important step toward the rest of my life, I think. I have tentative future plans after the apprenticeship is over, though it will probably be a year or more. I am getting a grip on life and enjoying it.

I will be up in Juneau, Alaska for a while, though hopefully I’ll be able to go down south every once in a while as well, but I will be writing from Alaska until you hear otherwise. Staying in Juneau is not something my sister chose, and I’m wondering if this time focusing on myself outside of a relationship and the reawakening I am experiencing will jolt me out of the familiar patterns I was falling into.