A Moment

When I left on vacation I knew I would return a different person.  There was something about how the vacation came into place that made me realize that this trip wasn’t accidental and that its underlying result would be altering.

I’d been a few days in Mexico, some by myself and mostly with the BFF doing a lot of beach sitting, Mexican food eating and zoning out.  It was just what I needed. 

We had taken up the habit to get up for breakfast, walk down to the Italian restaurant (which may be a front for money laundering but whatevs,) just beyond the touristy zone and enjoy our morning meal.  The day after BFF left, I sat at our table, ordered the same thing and started to read my book.  I’ve had Slouching Towards Bethlehem in my possession for many years now, never really sitting down to work my way through.  The book is a collection of essays by Joan Didion (whose Good Bye to All essay changed my life).  Her writing is outstanding but not something you breeze through, hence my apprehension to delve into.

The morning was warm (like most mornings in Riviera Mayan) and I turned to the next essay, On Self-Respect. As I was reading I knew my moment was coming. The was something in her writing, how she wrote that I knew the moment I’d been waiting for, where I would feel in my heart of hearts, I would return home a different person.

Blaring on the TV was VH1’s “Classic Songs” (which was a lot of really bad 80s music…real bad). While I was reading this essay a song came on that was inextricably tied to the most recently dissolved romantic relationship.  When I heard the familiar hook I looked up and watched the video.  In light of what I was reading and the song, the moment crept up into my heart that was so filled with warmth and love and peace, that I knew, through every fiber of my being and marrow of my bone, my life had changed.  I had changed.

I’ve come to believe these moments don’t come too often (my last one was 6 years ago).  I’ve come to believe that even if these moments do come, sometimes they go unnoticed simply through unawareness or resistance to change.  I’d been waiting for mine for quite some time and with a grateful heart I hold onto the moment.

It’s an oddly refreshing space to be where you no longer have to work to not be the person you used to but be the person you just are.  I left the old me in Mexico (probably somewhere in the Caribbean Ocean). I can’t describe what parts of old me I left but I’m pretty sure it’s the parts that carried around baggage, harbored resentment, was slow to forgive, was used as a doormat, was tolerant of intolerable things, was slow to learn lesson and quick to repeat history. But more than that, inexplicably more than that.

This vacation was no accident. This vacation was the backdrop, vehicle, catalyst and ushering instrument to allowed me the space to exist as the not as the person I was, but the person I am and suppose to be to achieve the things I am meant to achieve.

If you see me, and I look different…it’s because I had a moment.  One of those life-changing ones.