live your life with arms wide open
today is when your book begins
the rest is still unwritten
At the risk of sounding cliché, only you can make your life happen.
Unwritten was my favourite song growing up. I remember nervously calling into the radio station at nine years old in the back of our minivan to request that they play it on my birthday when this song was at peak popularity. I never ended up getting through to the station, but for years Natasha Bedingfield continued to be my favourite artist. She was my first concert at ten years old at the Coke Stage during Stampede - a core memory for sure, hearing Unwritten live and Pocket Full of Sunshine. Euphoric, really.
Unwritten truly was the anthem of my childhood and serves as a good reminder in adulthood. Yes, it’s simple. Yes, it’s been a meme. Yes, it’s cliché. All the while, it remains true.
This year looks a lot like my pre-teen pop star’s lyrics. So much of my life, and yours too, remains unwritten. As someone whose thoughts are predominantly in the future and thinking of everything I need to do and have to do, this trip is constantly reminding me that while I think I can write out my future there is so much that remains subject to change and with arms wide open that change is so much easier to accept. No expectations and allowing whatever to be, be.
I remember hearing the song for the first time in the Christian CD store, hitting play on the machine with the headphones, much too large for my head, and the first note playing. I don’t think this song being my favourite song at seven years old is any coincidence to how my life has played out. To a lot of people my life has seemed random, without sense, constant starting and stopping never really finishing or getting anywhere, but still in some ways captivating and to some even inspiring. With the help (and privilege) of my parents being open to and encouraging my sisters and I to live our lives as we want, this song is also reflective of this.
Especially as I look at the last year the lyrics
I break tradition sometimes my tries are outside the lines we've been conditioned not to make mistakes but I can't live that way
are exactly as how this past year played. Some looked at my choices as mistakes, I often wondered if some of my choices were mistakes, but I really don’t regret anything. I think I have reached the place that I also don’t wish things were any different than how they were. I look back and the only thing I want is to hold 25 year old Marissa and although she knew, remind her that everything will work out in ways unimaginable. And that a blank page is the most powerful thing anyone can have. It doesn’t have to be seen as a chance to start over, but to simply continue and fill it with more beautiful and wonderful things. There’s no rewriting, editing or reworking words that were already on the page, but something completely and entirely new. Without any expectations, to dream something new as you go along.
It was so scary at first. Especially when the words written and the stories created were so beautiful and wonderful and full of so much promise of things I could have ever wanted. But as a friend gently reminded me, they are only that. Stories. Fantasies. Things not in existence. However, with the blank page presented to me it was an opportunity to write something new. To be exactly who I am, or whoever I want to be. To be someone who is highly capable of choosing and unapologetically living their life with love, joy, integrity, adventure, and with endless hope, empathy, grace and compassion. Exactly as I am, and exactly who I want to be.
Travelling the way I have been the past 5 months I haven’t had a lot of time to fully process all that I have experienced. However, in April I made a video compiling the last month and even still when I rewatch it I’m in awe of how much joy and life radiates from me. I was given a blank page and have since been writing a beautiful story and constantly excited for what will be written next.
There is so much simple wisdom and truth in this song that I know there’s a reason seven year old Marissa loved it and has never stopped loving it since, 20 years later. There is so much left unwritten which is so beautiful. Even as plans or things I was hoping to do have once again changed, it’s the arms wide open attitude, letting the sun illuminate the words I cannot find, and drenching myself in words unspoken. I know without a doubt that little girl howling the words to this song in the back seat of our silver dodge caravan would be so proud and in such disbelief of all the things we have accomplished. The places we have been and the things we have gone through and have handled with strength and grace. Because at the beginning of the year I promised myself this year, we would do it for her, and by God are we ever.
With much and thanks and see you in the next one <3
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Witnessing you live larger than life is such a joy ✨
Thank you for these beautiful reminders -- I am ready to feel the rain on my damn skin again!!