Three days till Go Time…
I sat in the center of my living room, packing and surrounded by piles of stuff, and suddenly the words on the side of a moving box caught my eye…
“Welcome Home”
Unexpectedly, I burst into tears.
I was deep in preparations to go travel full-time
The weeks leading up to departure had been filled with work and life, plus figuring out all the things I needed to do, to get ready to go.
And suddenly it was here. The movers were coming tomorrow to take my stuff to storage.
And so I sat in the center of my living room, and I don’t often get overwhelmed, but suddenly the tears were pouring.
And the thoughts poured through, out of nowhere:
… what was I doing, anyway?
… leaving friends
… leaving a beautiful place I loved
it was suddenly bizarre and amazing, and I wasn’t sure I knew exactly what I was up to.
The Impossible Becomes Real
The idea of an adventure like this had been outside my reality, for most my life.
I’d spent most my life dealing with an autoimmune condition and chronic health issues that I was constantly, carefully managing.
In 2019, after a long intense period of deep healing work (on all the dimensions) — my health came finally, fully back, after thirty years.
I found myself living in a body that felt good, as a normal thing, for the first time since I was fourteen.
(This was wild. Not having to manage my health and be concerned about weird symptoms every day meant there was a sudden carefree-ness to just existing. “OH- this is how people just live!!!”)
… and my world opened up.
… except then, it was 2020, and the world shut down.
And in a short space of time, everything changed, and my life changed. I found myself moving to New Mexico, which was a place I dearly loved (and where I always thought I’d land).
And now, just a couple years later — I’d suddenly had the crazy and amazing idea to go pick up again — and leave the place that now felt like home, and head out into the unknown.
The part of this that felt wild and unbelievable was that I had no fear about my health.
I could feel how my body was completely, radically different than the days when I dealt with bizarre inexplicable fatigue, and endless infections, and vertigo, and weird neurological symptoms….
I could feel that I was in a different body. And it was solid enough to pick up and leap. And being able to rely on that was incredible and amazing. It was just that I couldn’t imagine what was coming next, or what to expect.
So, I sat in my living room, surrounded by piles of stuff. And I sat in this strange space of unknowing. Not knowing what to feel.
I was here, in this moment — but I couldn’t predict any moments ahead.
……. and so, the tears.
What is Feeling at Home, Anyway?
And also, the questions.
Because I was kinda fascinated by how deeply those words “Welcome Home” had hit me…
::: did home need to be a place?
::: what’s home?
::: could the new-found sense of safety and health and freedom in my body be home?
::: what about the new sense of solidness and clarity and connection that I’d found?
It had been a journey for most of my life to just feel like I belonged on this planet. (I may still have my days…. but I’m solidly committed to being here, now).
::: was my sudden desire to explore the planet driven by a new desire to really be here?
What if home could mean being here, being alive, being open to the unknown, feeling confident enough in this life and this body to be able to go anywhere — what if this WAS my home.
What if home could be Ecuador, and then Colombia, and then Brazil or Uruguay or Argentina or Chile, and then and then…..
Feeling connected. Feeling belonging. Feeling safe. Feeling known.
Is it the feelings beneath “home” that we’re really craving?
Yes, I had a deep soul-connection to the land in New Mexico… but what if the places I was drawn to were places I also belonged?
A Breath at a Time
The tears had stopped.
I felt a different kind of centeredness, deep in my chest.
I took a couple breaths and decided to order some food.
I took another look at the stuff around me still to be packed, and mentally sketched out the next few hours, and how I’d get it done before bed.
And I knew there was a ton of amazingness on the other side of packing it all, and I might not know what to feel or what it would feel like, but it was coming.
Day Out of Time
48 hours later, I sat on the bed in my hotel near the airport, propped up with pillows and everything I needed to be happy, at hand. (Like a journal. And a laptop).
With my stuff successfully moved to storage, and keys to my apartment turned in.
It’d been a long day of moving — followed by a get-together saying good bye to friends, and eating enormous amounts of delicious food cooked by my friend Imelda.
Imelda… who’d felt like a guardian angel to me when I’d first moved to town, and had quickly become a dear friend. Sitting by the fire pit beneath the stars in Imelda’s backyard, and saying good byes to friends who were soul-family let me soak in the last moments in New Mexico in a way that I knew would stick.
And now — waiting in the hotel room — with my old life successfully packed up and just one more day till my flight, there was nowhere to be but present.
The Mayans speak of the “day out of time”
(It’s an “extra” day… to allow the 13 Moons Calendar to re-align to the 365 Day Calendar, and to re-align our own energy).
There’s a real day for this — it’s July 25th.
But I’ve also always loved the energy and concept of the “day out of time” – and I schedule “days between days” whenever I can.
…and this felt like a day out of time.
With nowhere to be but here, in my hotel room by the airport…. with everything done, drinking matcha green tea from my travel tea kettle, journalling and dreaming in a space outside of time and place, and about to get on a plane tomorrow.
Welcome. Home.
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