Wherever You Go, There You Are.
When we packed all our belongings into a 10x10 storage unit and left home most people were excited for our next great adventure. But when they hear we are spending another month in a small town they’ve never heard of we usually get the same question: Why there? Won’t you get bored? The truth is, boredom was never what I was trying to escape. Exhaustion was. After years of feeling sick, overwhelmed and stuck in survival mode, I wanted to know what it felt like to enjoy an ordinary Tuesday - to actually feel joy again.
From my daydreams I could feel the relief of putting my toes in the warm sand, running freely into the ocean, meeting strangers who become friends, and curling up with Harley by my side every night. And in many ways, those dreams came true.
Playa 72 Beach
I thought I knew I’d feel peace from that. But the saying is true - wherever you go there you are. And when you’re away from everyone and everything with no more distractions you have to face everything you’ve been avoiding. Which can absolutely be beautiful, but there’s also a grief in that that I wasn’t expecting.
Being in a warm climate, submerging in the ocean, having coffee with new friends and slowing down to savor life and just be with myself again I started building capacity to feel the things that I’d been numbing and running from. I made room to experience sadness, and grief, and pain, but also expanded my capacity for joy and love and laughter and fun again too - which was more unfamiliar than the pain I’d been living in for the better part of my life.
Playa del Carmen, Mexico
It turns out what I was searching for wasn’t necessarily remarkable at all. It was quiet mornings, ocean swims, chatting over a coffee with nowhere to be, and ending the day grateful instead of depleted. Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. - Psalm 30:5.
And not every place has been perfect like it was in my dreams. There have been missed trains, stomach bugs, moldy apartments, loneliness and days when I wondered what we were doing at all. It taught me to look for goodness where I am instead of focusing on everything that’s going wrong, what I don’t have, or the pain that still lives in my body.
More than anything, it’s teaching me that joy was never hiding in some perfect destination.
Somos Crisol
It was waiting for me on ordinary Tuesdays all along.