It has been a few weeks since we’ve been back from Hawaii. All of my girlfriends have been asking for the real story of Hawaii. So, tell me, did anything happen behind those gorgeous pictures you posted of yourself and Chris under 10,000 different Hawaiian sunsets or was it really as dreamy as it seemed?
Well, as I said to them, nothing dramatic happened. But profound. Yes, profound happened. Lots of self-awareness and deepening of our coupleship. Lots of humble, grateful communion with the Divine in the form of water and sand and green and sky.
As I told my friends, one of the best souvenirs I took home from Hawaii was the confirmation that “paradise” and “vacation” are just states of mind and yoga, prayer, good friends, 12-step meetings, therapy and meditation are the ways in which I continuously make my reservation.
The moments my thoughts were not good, it did not matter that I was in Hawaii. Because, really, I wasn’t. I was in my head that just happened to be geographically located in space in a place on a map we call Hawaii. The moments where my mind was at peace (which was for the most part) I was in an immense state of gratitude. And yet, even in this yummy, expansive place within myself, I understood that this feeling was not specific to being in Hawaii. It was a hard earned life feeling.
It has been my experience travelling with many people over the years that those who are miserable in their hometown are miserable when they travel. Realizing this has also saved me from a lot of gratuitous jealousy over anybody else’s elaborate international travel plans. Misery doesn’t stay home with the nanny. Sure, it may take a day to remember the life-as-it-is-is-not-good-enough script, but, eventually, the same set of worries, concerns, doubts, obsessions, compulsions, addictions, illnesses, fights, fantasies, and frustrations pop up. Instead of stressing about work or kids or finances, they stress about not getting on the 10:00 am scuba trip or not getting reservations at such and such restaurant or not having enough privacy or not having access to the special foods they like to eat or missing out on events at home.
In 12-Step recovery, we laugh about how we thought moving would eliminate all our problems when we were in our active addictions. Like if we moved from Kansas to New York, we’d miraculously go back to being able to drink just one glass of wine and behave appropriately in social situations and have nice, normal, loving relationships with all our new loves and friends we would make in this far superior city. We call this fantasy the “geographic cure.”
It’s good to finally be at a place in my life where I was just as happy to take myself to Hawaii as I was to take myself back.
