Thursday, September 10, 2015

I Am Not Me


People keep asking me why I moved to Maui.
Is it because of your job?
Do you have something else lined up?
Did you meet someone new?

No, no, & definitely no.


Instead of stumbling over my words every time, trying to summarize all the reasons why, I thought it’s time I get back on my blog and share some thoughts.


enjoy.







A series of events in my life have led me to where I am today.
I really struggled through college finding my place in this world.
Making friends, choosing degrees, switching schools, moving from city to city.
College was 4 years of constantly trying to discover myself and failing at each attempt.

I’ve tried to put myself in so many different shoes.
The business student, the fashion guru, the psych counselor, & the independent woman.
Each identity I placed myself in left me feeling empty & unsatisfying.

Even with relationships, I’ve failed miserably.
I just can’t figure it out.

At the end of May, another event in my life was unsuccessful & left me feeling unfulfilled.

I honestly believe I put my all in.
I was bound and determined to be the best at everything. The best employee, the best homemaker, the best Christian, the best girlfriend and the best physically I could possibly be.

I failed.
I could not find a way to balance in my life.
It felt like everything I did was sucking the life out of me.


My job was draining.
I was stressed and tired constantly.
As much as I searched, I could not find it in me to be passionate about my career.
I had no social life; I was traveling alone, working alone, and living alone.
I wasn’t able to get linked into church with constantly being gone.
Yet again, I couldn’t find a way to make a relationship work.



I finally woke up one morning and said,

"This can't be it"

This can’t be the life I worked so hard to live.
Is this really why I did sixteen years of school including three summers in college?
Is this why I worked so hard?
Just to sit in an apartment, alone & empty, putting all my energy into a job I couldn't love.


“This isn’t me!”


This isn’t the life I want to live! 
This wasn’t depression; this was a wake up call.
I had this unsettling feeling that I was missing the “me I am supposed to be.”

So I stopped whining about my job, pouting over situations in life, eating Ben & Jerry’s to pass the time, and came up with a plan.

If I didn’t like my life then it was up to me to change it.

I told no one what I had brewing inside my mind.
I couldn’t tell anyone because for so long I let the world tell me who I was suppose to be.
I couldn’t loose focus of what I wanted by the distraction of other’s opinions.

It’s beautiful how people have different views on how to live life but it was time I start listening to my own heart’s desires.
At the end of the day, how does the way I live my life affect anyone else?

It’s funny how the world works; it can take so much from you if you’re weak.
I have given so much of myself to people who could care less.
Trying to impress people who were impossible to impress.
I’ve been in too many relationships where it was impossible for me to please the other.
Friends, boyfriends, and other acquaintances who just take and take.

But I let them.
I kept giving pieces of myself to people crossing my path.
I kept handing myself out hoping I had some sort of value to another human being.
So many pieces of me had gone missing.

I can’t say these people were undeserving of me because I didn’t know my own worth.

I so badly just wanted to make others proud of me, to love and be loved.
And I did for short amounts of time.
But it never stayed.

At the end of the day, I wasn’t proud of myself & I most certainly did not love myself.
How could I be proud of myself if I wasn’t passionate about anything I did?
How could I expect someone to love me when I didn’t even love myself?

I didn’t want to feel that way anymore.

I need to do something big. 
You're only in your twenties once. 
I have no husband or kids.
The time was now or never.

The ideas were endless when it came to what I wanted to do with my life.
Do I move to the big city? I’ve always dreamt of living in New York!
Do I spend a summer in Greece? I never did go for study abroad.
Do I go backpacking? I’d love to explore Europe traveling from hostile to hostile!

After a lot of thinking suddenly Hawaii was placed into my mind very vividly.
I don’t even know how to explain it. The choice was so clear.
So many crazy occurrences happened while resting on the idea.

To name just a few:

I was sampling some juice at an event and one of the guys who tried my product was wearing a Hawaii tee shirt. I asked him if he liked it there and he said he lived there in his twenties and it was the best decision of his life.

Another couple stopped me while I was out walking my dog. I honestly don’t even remember how the conversation got led but the husband said his biggest regret in live was not moving somewhere fun for a few years as a young adult because before you know it, it’s thirty years later and you missed that window of opportunity.

Just when I started thinking to myself I couldn’t possibly go because I couldn’t afford to live in Hawaii by myself, my friend announces that she just moved to Maui and needed a roommate.

Then again I think to myself this can’t work because I could never leave my dog. But sure enough I run into a couple at a bakery who’s son just took his dog to Hawaii and taught me about the whole quarantine process.

There are so many other weird and random, yet amazing and heart warming situations I came across the last three months that confirmed my move to Maui.

It just felt right, so I went with it.

I told friends and family that I felt more at peace about this decision than I ever have on anything else in my life.

Making this happen took lots of problem solving, advanced planning and budgeting.

I had a 3 phase plan to make this move work realistically.

Phase 1: Pre Hawaii
Phase 2: Transition to Hawaii
Phase 3: Post Hawaii

Each phase I had it own separate to-do list.

PHASE 1:

  • -       Tell my parents I’m quitting my job and moving to Hawaii... SCARY!
  • -       Save up extra money, so no more Starbucks...
  • -       Finish my job professionally
  • -       Find one last place for my dog to stay during my last business trip
  • -       End my lease in Seattle
  • -       Sell most my belongs
  • -       Sell my car (I wanted to liquify my life of any material objects)
  • -       Box up the rest of my stuff (Packing up my apartment all alone was a lot of work and right when I laid down in tears because I didn’t have the energy to pack on top of my work schedule, my neighbor randomly knocked on my door to say hi and then INSISTED she help me pack! Such a huge blessing from God. I am forever thankful to Terry in apt. #3304)
  • -       Load up all stuff (with my dads help) and haul it all across Washington into a storage unit.
  • -       Be homeless for one month while I finish out my job. *Special thanks to friends who allowed my dog and I to crash at their homes while I traveled and worked.
  • -       Start the quarantine process for my dog
  • -       Find a place to live in Maui that's dog friendly and affordable



PHASE 2:
  • -       Buy a ONE WAY plane ticket to Maui
  • -       Calculate how much money I have to not work for a month.
  • -       Confirm all my dogs vaccinations are cleared
  • -       Set my dog up at my parents house to live and begin wait
  • -       Find a ride at the airport + pick up


PHASE 3:           
  • -       RELAX for a month!!!
  • -       Find a church
  • -       Get linked into a bible study
  • -       Buy a car, something simple that can take my dog and I exploring
  • -       Learn what people do for a living in Hawaii, decide what I would enjoy for work
  • -       Apply for a job
  • -       Start online school at end of September


AND most importantly, PRAY.

God has most definitely cleared the path for me to come to Hawaii.
There is not a doubt in my mind that this plan was within his will for me.
From the cheesiest things like signs on roads or conversations with strangers to the craziest incidents like intense dreams, clearly written for me devotions, and many road blocks being miraculously cleared for me to make this move work. Along side the peace that has flooded my soul, reassuring that this decision is destined to be.

The glory goes to God for making this happen.
I have been so blessed.
God made a divine plan for me and I’m determined to seek it out.

Now here I am sitting in paradise.
There is no doubt in my mind I am finally where I belong.
I’m now on the path of healing and self-discovering.


So, here’s to me.
Here’s to me taking care of myself.
Here’s to fighting for my soul back.
Here’s to collecting the pieces I gave to the world.
Here’s to me rebelling against an empty life.
Here’s to starting over.



Here’s to being me.


xx