Whisper in whose ear???

Its been a while since my last post.... mainly cause I've been getting some sleep, today however I missed my window to go to bed when I was actually tired, so here I am.

I bought a house today. Signed and everything. And I'm sitting here reflecting on my past 10 years and wondering where the time went.... 10 years ago I was 16 and anxiously counting down the days til my 17Th birthday. Funny how great it was to get older. Do you remember when you were 16? When cute boys (or girls) going out past curfew and groaning over school starting for another year were all you had to worry about? When the smallest things seemed like the end of the world and now they are all fond memories, a right of passage we all go through? And now at 26 I hear myself saying the words my parents used to say to me (and end up rolling my eyes at myself) to my younger sister who is almost 15. I find myself wishing I could go back with everything I know now and do it all over again and just laugh the entire way through it. But I can't help but wonder when the switch flipped.... when I went from needing the advice more than I give it? So I've decided that people DO CHANGE.

The flip of the switch I think is when you get that chance, to find a defining moment; Where you get to decide exactly how you feel without the influence of others.

I moved to Australia when I was 24. I had my going away party and birthday party in the same night. One week later I was on a plane by myself, and I didn't have one god damn second of fear. For the first time in my life I felt FREE. Liberated. I was going somewhere where I could be anyone, do anything, cause there was NO ONE there to judge me or whisper their thoughts in my ear. It was only then that I truly realised how much an influence even the smallest whisper can have. That even a perfect stranger can throw a shred of doubt into you or convince you to sell your soul. So I have to wonder if its really our deepest inner thought that is so subtle we don't even consider it, until that whisper in your ear confirms your every hearts desire, and you didn't even know you desired it in the first place. what happens when we have to search within ourselves to find the answers instead of searching within the voices we trust most, to point out the options we never considered? When we truly begin to trust ourselves with our own advice, is that when we advise with conviction?

The whisper that unveiled my desire to get the fuck out of Winnipeg was Lindsay. A friend I met randomly (I've never met ANYONE this randomly) all it took was one sentence " So go to Australia Jen. Just do it" That's it. Everyone else told me to wait. Save more money, go with friends. But it didn't matter. That one simple sentence had me so convinced that 2 months later I was gone. Where there's a will, there's a way. After that moment I never needed another whisper to convince me to do anything. They would still come, but to my surprise, I'd already thought of what they were whispering about. She had simply said the one thing that unlocked my heart and all it desired.

So maybe when we remove self-doubt, and know in our hearts that we no longer need the thoughts from others to convince us to do the things we already know we should, is when we go from being on the receiving end of a whisper to the ones doing the whispering. Perhaps this why some people cannot give advice... maybe they just never got to have that moment to decide completely on their own. So instead of censoring your advice (and granted you should still choose to word it wisely) let it out. What if your simple whisper changed someone else's heart. What if you said the one thing that no one else was willing to say?