Dear 2012,
The last couple of days have been ones of deep introspection. 2011 was one of the most difficult of my life, but it was also singularly the most important year of my life. As a result, I wasn’t sure I was ready to see the year end. It was a year of breaking out of the mold, learning to live outside of the box, and finally beginning to live my life in an authentic way. It was the year I became a cowgirl.
I started 2011 with the loving guidance of a world-renowned Curandera named Starr Fuentes, whom I serendipitously encountered on my road trip in Hot Springs, Arkansas. For the first 5 weeks of the year, Starr helped me shed my unhealthy pattern of always following the restrictive rules I had set for my life, and she kick-started the process of me writing my book. In late spring of 2011, I moved my entire life across country to Texas for a man I hardly knew. When I quickly realized I had made a mistake, instead of running back to LA with my tail between my legs to the unfulfilling life that had driven me out of LA in the first place, I instead decided to keep moving forward. I made a seemingly impulsive decision once again and moved to Austin. Despite being a city that I had only visited once, it was a city to which I felt a magnetic pull so strong that it couldn’t be ignored.  The past 5 months in this magical city have been some of the best of my life.
On my road trip in February of 2011, I met a cowboy named Wade in San Antonio. We spent an hour together where Wade shared his story. While we were talking, it hit me. I wanted to be a cowgirl. I’ve always wanted to be a cowgirl. Not a cowgirl in the real life ride a horse and herd cattle type of way, but in a figurative way. I’ve always wished that I could kick up my spurs and live a life authentic to me. I’ve always craved an existence that makes my soul sing, of living as I did as a child with a creative life driven by my intuition. However instead of embracing my inner cowgirl, I’d spent my life following the rules and doing what I felt others expected me to do. I’d spent my life with the paralyzing fear of living outside of the box, when all I ever really wanted was to put my twin six-shooters in their holsters and ride bareback on that bucking horse of living life with wide-eyed adventure.
Baptism in Barton Creek
This afternoon I was sitting on the banks of Barton Creek with Yoda, wondering what 2012 would bring. After a few minutes, two men dressed in black pants and long sleeved black shirts walked straight into the water across the creek from me. A group of about 20 people gathered on the bank and started singing and swaying back and forth. Then one man took the other man’s head and immersed his entire body in the water. I realized that I was witnessing a baptism, a spiritual rebirth of this man.  In that moment, I let go of my sadness with saying farewell to 2011. In that moment, I understood that 2011 had been a year of spiritual rebirth for me. It was the year I became a cowgirl.
So, 2012, I really am profoundly happy to meet you. My new year’s resolution is to keep living the life of a cowgirl.  I’m excited to see what adventures you send my way. In closing, 2012, I think I love you already.
Sincerely,
Cowgirl Kee Kee
Read me on The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-buckley/
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