It is hard to get me off this island, it really is. Each time, right before I need to leave, I feel this weird anxious pull. Like a toddler stopping its feet I DON’T WANT TO GO.
It’s not that I don’t like to travel, or to see all the people in my networks, or to learn, to teach and to explore these fabulous places. I do want to do all that.
It was all just so much easier to do when I was able to leave a place that wasn’t so special to me.
But I do go. And I connect, I eat, I laugh and I thoroughly enjoy myself.
And then I come home.
And it is in that moment, when I see the island again, that I feel this strange sense of peace return to me. My body relaxes, my soul breathes a sigh of relief. I am home.
My mind, which was so busy with so many thoughts while I was away, gets more centred. It quiets for a moment as I breath the air, as I look around me.
I come home.
I come back to my family, the most important thing to me. I come back to my bed (oh, that wonderful bed) and my space and my trees and my flock. I come back to the true definition of who I am, a place that my husband and I are building to be completely us.
I slow down, I easily answer the questions about my trip, I snuggle in bed with the kids and read the stories I missed while I was away. I make dinner, and sit across from my family and ask them about their week. I unpack the crumpled laundry, and bits I have collected on my journey. I settle into life. My life.
At some point, every time I come home, I take a moment and just BE. I hear quiet. I smell nothing but fresh air. I feel utterly and blissfully happy to be home.
And it reminds me of times I wasn’t happy to be home. It makes me think of when our home wasn’t something I longed for, for a time when I was so hungry for more, for different, for anything. It makes me feel exceptionally grateful to have had the opportunity to build an entire life that filled me with joy. To find a home that created happiness and contentment in me.
So, for all of you who were away…. are you happy to be home?
If you aren’t, you can change this. Trust me, it is worth it.