I chose...

I chose…

 Sometimes I sit in the room that I rent from a guest house in the middle of one of the most incredibly beautiful islands in the world. (I base this unbiased statement on my vast experience of living or visiting a whole of 6 islands) wondering why I feel depressed. Why I fail to recognise and appreciate the beauty that surround me. Why I feel so alone, wanting more, convincing myself that I need more.

 I could have had a husband, a few kids, a charming home with wooden floors, antique furniture, a herb garden beside the kitchen door and a front garden that housed fairies and smelled like jasmine in the cool twilight of summer evenings.

 I could have had laughter and disagreements and blood-boiling arguments. I could have had Christmases with a big green artificial tree decorated in shiny ornaments that reflects the light of the twinkling lights strung carefully over the branches. I could have had a home smelling of freshly baked bread and cookies and a home cooked meal.

 I could have climbed the corporate ladder. Slowly and laboriously pulled myself up rung by painful rung.

  I could have had the material things that many people see as a necessity… the shiny new car in the garage… the smartphone that would eventually become an extension of myself… the business suits… the designer bags.

 

But then I made a choice…

I chose to answer Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s question whether I can disappoint another to be true to myself, bare the accusation of betrayal to not betray my own soul… I decided to return the ring… to walk away from a man who treated me like a princess. I had caused one of the worst kinds of pain that one person could cause another, to a man who didn’t deserve one second of it.

 I resigned from my corporate job, did a double back summersault off the ladder, literally splashing into a world thousands of miles away from anything I ever knew. I chose to immerse myself without inhibition into a life that is full of richness and colour and experiences that I could never have dreamed of having.

 Yes, Oriah, I betrayed another and here I am, standing at the centre of the fire screaming at the universe: ‘I am not finished yet!” patiently waiting for the person who will be willing to join me in this crazy scary, exhilarating, frustrating, breathtakingly wonderful life that I had chosen.