Globetrotting
Easter Rocked… and Swayed…
I’ve been woken up by two earthquakes before. They were so light I practically fell asleep within seconds, only to realise the morning after what exactly had transpired. Today I experienced my first ‘daytime’ earthquake in LA. No more than five minutes had passed since I had spoken to family, thousands of miles and a continent away, who were already preparing for a good night’s rest by then after their Easter dinner.
While the floor shifted and the chandelier swayed, and a dog wiffled wondering what was going on, I stood where it seemed safest, and waited for things that should not be moving like this to stop moving as they were. I sent a simple text message to my closest friend (ironically, two hours’ drive away, and for whom I was dog sitting) saying, “Earthquake…” following up a few minutes later with, “It’s all good.”
I’ve finally been ‘inducted’ into the LA Quake Hall of Existence. Needless to say, I am grateful nothing more came of this one.
It did, however, shake up my already sensitive self. As the afternoon progressed, so did my reflections on what it means to be so far away from people you care about (both in distance and time differences), when those within your more immediate vicinity have already assimilated such things and passed them off as ‘just another one,’ and don’t think to check in on how you might have felt since you’re still new to it all. Everyone I know is so wrapped up in their own lives these days, it’s hard to feel connected.
So, admittedly, I felt very alone, and very uncomfortable.
It is not always easy to understand why sometimes we are in a strange place, with few people to call upon, feeling overwhelmingly isolated, and asking ourselves why and what for? What brought us here in the first place, and where is it taking us? What did we tell ourselves that landed us where we are, if it’s not quite where we thought we’d be?
As a friend of mine in Richmond just reminded me while I was writing this, “Better to have tried and failed than never tried at all.” Cliché, yes. True 99.99% of the time though.
And to this may I add, that ‘failure’ is really nothing more than an indicator for us to go in a different direction in order to fulfil our dreams and aspirations. Perhaps a painful indicator at times.
As we go along our way, we may do things others won’t approve of, and feel very detached as a result. Yet real approval has to come from within.
We may do things that others may point fingers at us for, because they don’t care to lend a hand and try to understand us better in the process.
We may be judged by people who forget to ask themselves what it really is that bothers them about what we do. Are we challenging a part of them that desires the courage to try something different, step outside the societal box of how things have always been?
We may be written off by some who deem themselves so important they need never take a chance to find a deeper connection.
The truth is, what does it really matter what they think, as long as we know that we are healthy, doing what we do with honesty, integrity, and hopefully, we are happy? If, beyond that, we have touched others and they share this with us, it is something more to be thankful for.
Ultimately, whatever you feel or do has to matter to you above all, even if nobody else is there, because when you’re all alone and the ground beneath you is shaking, and you don’t know what is going to happen next… this is when you hope to be at peace with yourself.
Yes, these words come from feelings of isolation, although that can be changed.
To those of you who know me and are reading this, I miss you.
