While the idea of living in a big house with a group of thirteen strangers conjured up images The Real World, the reality was, no one ever stopped being polite. There were no episodes of binge drinking or drunken brawls, roommate roulette or random hook-ups, cat fights or salacious scandals. Well, at least not that I was aware of.
Okay, so I was lonely. I missed my city. I missed my tribe. I missed my creature comforts. But, hey, I'm adaptable. My new intention was to fall in love with my new life in this isolated paradise and embrace every ounce of this unique expat experience; including my new Spa career at five-star resort in the Caribbean.
This perfect paradise is now my home. Every day I try to let that soak in even though it seems to defy all sorts of logic. I'm a city girl, after all. A jaded New Yorker. Ok, I'm originally from a small college-town in Massachusetts but had an instant love affair with the Big Apple starting at age thirteen when I started spending summers training at the Dance Theater of Harlem and Alvin Ailey School of Dance.
The ground was shifting beneath me again. I may be a "spiritual gangster" and shit, but my mind was still filled with uncertainty and my bones ached with the threat of loneliness which I knew would only intensify over the next two years while living on a private resort island in the Caribbean with a population of three hundred.
When you fall off the wagon, you usually fall pretty damn hard and into a downward spiral of self-destructive behavior with no desire for help or change and absolutely no reason for hope. Your mind becomes resolute with the idea of failure; not just in love, but in life in general.
It took a lot of courage to admit to myself that I needed space from Mr. Weird Science. I didn't really wanna walk away from our relationship but my spirit felt restless knowing that after all this time, he wasn't interested in something serious. I couldn't believe I'd unwittingly let myself get this far into a relationship when our intentions were so different. And it hurt to realize that perhaps my value wasn't valuable enough -- to him.
Well something BIG did happen. My first post-divorce heartbreak. Ha, wasn't ready for that one! Well played, Universe, well played. Lessons learned:
- Never overestimate someone's feelings for you.
- Never underestimate the power of timing.
- And NEVER fall for someone who's not ready to fall with you.
Whether or not I'm going through a bonafide mid-life crisis is uncertain. I mean maybe it's pure coincidence that I'm about to turn forty-four and life just happens to suck at the moment. But the cool thing about being a true Indie Girl and a grown-ass woman, is my ability to acknowledge life's current suckiness and its vortex of negative emotions without losing myself in it.
