A Year Later - Transformation

A year to the day has passed since I left Indiana for India and my life has changed in ways I could not have imagined. I have allowed the experiences to transform me - to penetrate my being and my soul; this has not been an adventure for the faint of heart. Although I have gained much, I have also lost much.

A wise mentor once said to me on another topic that some people die knowing, some people die wondering and some people die never having even thought about it. I'm the kind of gal who has to know...I could ponder forever the why's but that would only take me out of the present moment of living.

Ignorance may be bliss; ignorance may also mask situations, emotions, desires, fears, etc that we aren't prepared or comfortable to face. Being in India allowed me the space to experience my ignorance. I didn't have my familiar distractions to immerse myself in. A more still and present me arose as I was completely out of my usual comfort zone. Little to nothing of my life in rural India was familiar to me...thus freeing me from self-limited defeating thoughts and behaviors; not a hundred percent of the time of course as I still took me with me!

My 6-month stay was truncated about 1/2 way in by my willingness to interrupt my course and be with my 20-something year old son as his father's life deteriorated. I returned to the States, Florida specifically, intending to be of comfort to my son and reconnect with my partner who had hesitantly supported my journey inward and outward to India. I was by my son's side a month later when his 47 year old father took his final breath in this life.

Back to those losses...unveiling ignorance combined with "if not now, then when" thinking and action is not comfortable and many of the people I had been surrounding myself with needed me to operate under the old set of assumptions. It could all no longer hold together and the partner and people that I thought would join with me and stay by my side have made their own choices.

I have ended up staying in Florida - shocked and amazed at how I slowly relocated. It wasn't really a plan as much as it was responding to the moments as they were occurring. I live in a geographic area that is quite similar to Tamil Nadu, India where I had rented my own apartment so I could get a sense of daily life versus hotel living.

It's been an amazing year - a tough year and certainly a year that I could never have predicted. My caution would be to remember that as you embrace life, live your dreams and cherish each moment, other people will judge you, resent you, not understand you and might leave you. But do it anyway because there will be room for new people who share your way of life and philosophies as well. And you will die knowing.

Namaste,
Tracy