This Is Me.

Hello world.  Here I am. 

If you would have told me one year ago that I would be in Gili Trawangan, Indonesia typing my first travel blog post and beginning a whole new life, I never would have believed you.  But here I am.  With tears in my eyes.  Sometimes I don’t know if they are happy or sad tears.  Sometimes they blend together and are both.  Today is one of those days.  I am so happy to be here and have this chance at a new beginning, but it is also an ending; and that is kind of sad.  My divorce is moving full steam ahead, and today we decided on a settlement, and that was hard.  It hit me like a ton of bricks and made me cry some real, sad tears.  That life is over.  9 years.  It wasn’t always perfect, and it was work, like any marriage; but it was my life.  And I loved it.  A lot of people think that I came out here to run away from my problems. I didn’t.  I think deep down I knew I was coming here to find me.  Somewhere along the way, I lost myself.  I lost my job in 2021 (which I had for 20 years and considered my identity), and to be honest, that hit me harder than I was expecting.  I don’t think that I ever really got over it, and I’m still dealing with that.  Coming to Southeast Asia was something that just happened to be on the books for a husband-wife vacation, but once the dust settled a little bit, I realized that the Universe was quite obviously sending me a sign and telling me to go….I had no home, no husband, no kids of my own (although I am eternally grateful for the teenage step-children that have so graciously made the decision to remain in my life), no real job (I was in the very beginning stages of building a new real estate career, but it was so early, I was just getting started…), and it seemed that if there was ever a time to throw caution to the wind, it was now.  So I went.  And I kept going.  And I’m still going.  And I plan to keep on going.

These last 5 months have been amazing, exhilarating, intoxicating, mind-blowing, grueling, lonely, joyful, and so sad all at the same time.  But I am grateful for every emotion that I have experienced and the best part is that I am learning about and re-discovering myself everyday.  And when I say everyday, I mean Every. Damn.  Day.  That is what this blog is really about.  Taking your life back and fucking meaning it.  Well, I mean it.  And I’m here to do the work.  And I was moved to take you with me as more and more of you reached out asking for more details and telling me how uplifted you were by my posts.  If I can inspire even just a few of you to take that leap, dream that dream, and believe in yourself, then this will be worth it.  If not, it will hopefully be a really great travel journal. 😉. So, in closing, I hope you will come with me, and follow along, and be inspired, and know that whatever you think is impossible, is actually possible.  It really is.  Change is hard, but change is also good.  We all have a light shining within us…let’s wander toward it together.