Bali Eve

Tomorrow, I fly to Bali.

Writing that feels surreal and more than a little bit poignant.

You see, two years ago, my life took a shape that looks nothing like the one I inhabit now. After a prolonged period of feeling that I just didn’t “fit" in my world anymore and laying awake night-after-night knowing that I needed to steer my canoe in a different direction, I eventually did the unthinkable ... and jumped ship.

This jump wasn’t done in the neat, well-planned, “I’ve-got-a-savings-buffer-and-a-five-step-plan” way.

Nope.

I leapt on out into open water with no raft, no buoy, no life jacket ... just a vision of how I wanted to feel within my life, a fistful of trust in “the process” and a wildcard, unexpected vision of wanting to reach the shores of Bali.

I have travelled extensively in Indonesia (Cambodia and Thailand) and have never been to Bali, but for some reason, semi drowning in the great ocean of life, that vision became my North Star. It was the tiny thread of warmth and sunshine that I kept following through every WTF wave that crashed over my head.

These last two years have been pretty stormy and once again, I learned to swim. I learned big lessons in what it meant to hold myself when no one else was around.

The extremes were real. There were moments of deep isolation (my two eldest children left home for Uni / a job at the same time as the life-jump and my littlest was with his papa for half the week) … followed by moments of profound self-connection, the kind that changes the very fabric of your inner world.

And all the while, Bali stayed in my mind like a soft little warmth on the horizon. The place wasn’t just geographical for me, but also symbolic of the personal transmutation that I’d not-so-elegantly taken a flying leap for.

Tomorrow, I go.

So, as you can see, this trip isn't just a holiday for me, but a big old tying up of loose ends. It's the closing of a long, raw, transformative cycle ... the removing of a heavy coat that has my life up until this point stitched all over every patch. It's a launchpad, like that moment before taking flight where you're held in that suspended space of being grounded and filled with anticipation for flight.

It makes me think about botanicals. How plants begin small pots, with enough room to survive, but not enough room to expand. Then comes the moment when their roots press too tightly against the edges, and everything in them strains for more space, more minerals, more sky.

That’s where I’ve been: at the tight-rooted edge.

Tomorrow, I leave for new soil and get to step onto the warm colourful land that kept me afloat when it was just me and the big stormy sea.