Elle Potter

The Perils and Perks of being a Free-Spirited Mess.

Flight of the Gypsy Bluebird (as seen on the wall of a cafe in Santa Barbara)

I’m living the good life right now.  One day when I have blue hair and lots of cats, I will look back specifically on this past year as the good ol’ days, the start of living every day like an adventure (excluding the days I spend in bed, trying to recover from too much adventure).

It’s been just about a year now since I left what I thought was my dream job, based on a gut-feeling and a heart-wrenching whim to follow the obnoxious yet surprisingly intuitive little voice in my head.  It started with a roadtrip from Boston to Denver with my sistercousin and was followed with intense studying of Anusara yoga with Amy Ippoliti, a month on Maui, and a total of visiting three countries (five if you count the ones I had layover in – and I do) and 23 different states (25 if you count layovers – and again, I do).

All in one year!

Someone left their receipt at the ATM one day, so I kept it to inspire me. This is SO not my bank account...

I’m living the life I’ve always wanted – of adventure, of travel and being surrounded by increasing numbers of supportive people who empower my every move, even though I also suffer from delightful bouts of financial insecurity.

Often I hear from people of how much they wish they could do what I’m doing now – to which I can only ever say, “YOU CAN!”  It wasn’t easy.  It still isn’t easy.  But because it’s what I want, and because so many times I have put this life aside for a life I thought I was supposed to have – because of all that, I simply refuse to have it any other way.  I take advantage of every opportunity presented to me – and even that hasn’t always ended up the best.  My life is about taking chances and making mistakes, and as blissful as I am in my free-spiritedness, I am also a mess.

I can do this because I don’t really have bills to pay – I live with my folks, for cripessake.  I am constantly accidentally sabotaging myself by sinking deeper and deeper into flakiness.  I have walked away from a handful of friendships and even burned a couple bridges with some because I couldn’t bear to look back, either because of what they had done to me, what I had done to them, or a combination of the both.  Either way, this past year has been a serious renovation of my life structure and I’m the one who made the tornado that tore it all apart.  I decided to put myself first.  I refused to allow myself to continue to be taken advantage of in a number of ways by no longer spreading myself too thin.

Don't look back, except to witness how far you've come.

I’m a fluke of nature in that I am most comfortable when in the midst of violent transition in my life.  Letting the dust settle has never been a part of my nature, and there is something that scares me about sticking around long enough to see what comes into view.

Let yourself be a little bit of a mess, if even just on three-day weekends or on mental-health days.  If you want to be ecstatically happy in your life, you have to understand that you will have to completely shake things up.  Turn things upside-down.  And spend a lot of time in tears, wondering what the hell you have done and will it be worth it?

My experience leads me to say Yes, yes it will be worth it.  And I still, to this day, spend a lot of uncertain hours and even days, wondering what I’ve screwed up this time, what I’ve missed out on, where I should go and if I really want to spend another year at my parent’s house in exchange for another year of being a distracted gypsy.

All I know is that I am always exactly where I need to be, and luckily, the unwavering belief in that is the only thing that never fails to keep me moving forward.