I looked down at my bright pink toenails against the rocks, the water lapping and splashing on pure quartz. Some areas were pink like my toes - rose quartz…in the wild!
There is so much magic here. I squeezed her hand and we giggled, peering into the most tranquil sea as it turned from bright turquoise to a soft cobalt, blending into the sky. To our left, the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the wild jungle.
We looked at each other and yelled out…“Three…two…one!” launching ourselves into the sea, naked and free.
Another moment of perfection. When we rose to the surface all we could do was yell, “I love my life!!” over and over. And we meant it.
I really meant it. And it didn’t happen right away. The last few months have been tough in my internal world. The external was epic, but inside of myself, I struggled so much.
I’ve been living on this island in the gulf of Thailand for five months. It’s been eight since I left the US, and over a year since I walked away from my old life. I knew the moment I decided to dismantle my old life that it would take me a very long time to rebuild what I had.
But…I did it! I built a life, complete with an incredible community, and a home, and work that I love doing. And it’s so much better than I could have imagined. I am frequently jumping from rocks into the sea and swimming in waterfalls and dancing in pyramids and snorkeling out my back door…This is it. This is my life…I built this.
AND, it is still in a process. As we swam back to shore, we reflected on life and death and I came up with a concept I call “Open Tabs”. It goes like this…
In the continuous rhythm of living and dying, everything is always in a process. Our work, our relationships, our internal world, our emotional experience, our health. It is not “life and death”, it is “living and dying”.
In our minds, we like to tie bows on everything. But that’s just not our reality most of the time. So, the question I began to ask myself is this:
Can I sit in the soup of my life, in the middle of all the things that have been resolved, and all the ones that have not, and be at peace? Essentially…can I be okay with the fact that I have open tabs?