Enough WIth The White Horse Already!

I never believed in The One. Whomever you choose to marry....well, you make each other The One.

Wise words and a huge relief for this City Girl that had been inundated with messages of Finding The One and Searching For Your Soulmate since she was a little girl.

I recently sat down to lunch with a friend and poured my heart out about love and relationships, marriage and other scary grown-up topics, and verbally processed through major life decisions that had been swirling around my thoughts. And the wisdom bomb she dropped was a huge relief.

Choose wisely whom you intend to be Your One and Only, but know that whomever you choose may not look exactly like The Knight in Shining Armor.

Some men are just men, not constant heroes who respond to my every whimper and sigh. And that's more than OK.

It was good to hear that the one we all look for – as well as all the other things in life one hopes will happen – may not look exactly like Prince Charming on His White Horse, but could instead look like real life.

And real life may actually turn out to be better than the fairy tale.

The Place Where I Belong

There's something so delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never can tell quite where they'll take you. Mine took me here. Where I belong. -Miss Potter

There's no name I'm aware of for that space in between letting go and holding on. It's that space of Just Being. That place where you allow things to grow and move. That area that allows a life to breathe. 

I moved back to The Beach 3 years ago next month. I had no plan for the first time in my life. I figured I would move back and the right opportunities would present themselves. I also knew on some level that I needed the space, my own space, to create and live and be.

I gave myself that luxury of living in that space of Just Being and I dare say I never left. 

And I didn't know where my plan of having no plan would lead me, but here I am.

I own 2 businesses, I teach 2 classes at the college level, and I write my own column for a local newspaper. I never thought in a million years that I would do any of these things. None of these things had ever been in any original plan I had drawn up for my future self. Not to mention the fact that I have been dating someone quite seriously for the past 6 months that I also had no plans to meet until much later when all of this career stuff could run itself. (As if it ever could.)

And yet this place of Just Being has turned out to be just right. It has turned out to be the place in which I belong.

Aloha!

I want to move to Kauai. There. I said it. I'm in love. With an island.

I know. I know. People go on exotic vacations and come back so tan and happy that they are convinced they would have a better life back on a beach in some remote location. Well, this time it's true. I would actually have a great life on that beach back on that remote island. I know the title of this blog is The City Girl, but truth be told I'm a Beach Girl. Always have been. I can't help myself. While I love a good pair of heels and getting all dolled up, I just adore a good beach day. In fact, I've been known to schedule work around prime beach hours just so I can get the absolute best sunshine of the day on this already tan skin.

I felt like I became a different version of myself on that island, the real version of myself. I finally slowed down. I slept more soundly. I craved time in the ocean and actually got out there. I laughed more. I smiled bigger. I let my hair down. (Like actually stopped wearing it all tied up on top of my head.) I lived more life on that island than I ever have back home. I enjoyed work more. (Yes, I worked while I was there. I didn't completely lose myself!) I made new friends.

I lived the good life that everyone talks about.

There is one set back, though, to the idea of actually living out there. I'm an habitual slave driver of myself. I will work until the cows come home, have dinner, brush their teeth, and go to bed. My idea of slowing down is driving the maximum speed limit. And while I was there I was constantly reminded of how much I over-live my own life (if that's even a thing). I never slow down and smell the roses, because I'm too excited to get to the destination already! So, I had to ask myself: Could I really live there and be happy in moment and really enjoy that place? And in that case, can I still live here at my beach and start to enjoy this place more than I do?

So, the plan is this: I will try to enjoy my life here a little more while secretly planning to somehow move my life out to my little island in the sun.

Ride of a Lifetime

Today's wisdom: Life is the wildest ride you will ever take and anyone who tells you any different is a liar. 

I got kissed this morning. It was sweet and felt long overdue when in reality I've only gotten to know this person over the past week. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would find someone so great, so kind and so wonderful this quickly after calling it quits with a different someone who had, in a way, become my best friend.

I don't know what will become of this. All I can say is that a whole helluva lot can happen in a week's time and I will never again assume how my life will go.

Lessons in Learning How to Rest, Part Five.

Lesson 5: Just Let Go

This may be my toughest learning lesson yet. In fact, I know it is, because I find myself repeating a string of words in varied orders lately. I can't help myself. I keep hearing myself saying the same words over and over again and it has far surpassed my level of patience and annoyance. It's just like when you nick your knee while shaving your legs and the blood that just won't stop coming seems like overkill. You think the scrape isn't that bad, but try as you might no amount of pressure or bandaid fixes will stop the flow.

Some things in life are easy to let go of: the fact that you'll probably never win the lottery, getting picked over for kickball, not having the ability to walk through walls, watching some jerk steal your parking spot, etc. Other things, however, can seem like gum stuck to your shoe. It's a process that can take daysmonthsyears before all that sticks to you, all that resonated with you as your "for sure" life plan for so many years, finally falls away and fades into the past where it belongs.

I'm on the verge of another big move, the possibility became something more (although what that is I have no idea!), all the things I was told would happen didn't and I am, once again, working for myself full-time. Basically, everything that was supposed to happen hasn't, absolutely everything I'm involved in has no guarantees of working in my favor and everything I thought was never possible has become a reality. And instead of being happy with where my adventurous life is today, I've been looking back and crying over what didn't pan out. In my head I know that what failed to come to fruition was probably not the best for me, but for some reason my heart has decided to fall into a pit of funk over that fact. It's ridiculous. It's stupid. It's silly.

I had an old roommate who used to say, "Where there's fruit, there's a root." That phrase used to make me cringe, because I knew she was right. She was so, so right. And once again I hear her words in my daily thoughts. So, now instead of repeatedly mulling over the past I will only be asking, "Where is this mother effing gum coming from?!"