Blossoming Hope (Sept 17)

As I meet three weeks in Roatan, I feel an impending shift approaching. I feel like I'm lying on the surface of the ocean after a great deep dive. The ebb and flow rocks you back and forth as you await your turn at the boat ladder. Sometimes you'll catch a wake and feel the water push you up like a sea nymph emerging from the depths. There's a small quake of excitement in the bottom of your belly before the ocean cradles you in her gentle grip once again.

I feel like I'm slowly drifting in a new direction...one I'd been hoping to find for a very long time. I can't explain it without going into crazy detail, but I find myself craving the things I'd forgotten I loved. The things I used to enjoy but pushed aside when time got short. For a long time I became a very serious...very worried person. Life became a series of steps I could calculate and analyze. Living was something to be manipulated and molded. Being free and fun-loving shifted into worry and stress. Eventually things just got convoluted. People very close to me know that was much of the reason for this trip...this grand adventure...for me to find the person I lost. I don't know how it happened, but it did. I changed into someone I couldn't recognize, but slowly, very slowly, I see glimpses of her.

Yesterday, during our surface interval between dives, Shona and I swam in the beautiful warm waters off of the boat. She went in first and I followed but, instead of rising, I went under. I swam through the salty sea and grabbed her leg pretending to be a shark. We doubled over into fits of giggles unable to stop as I hit the surface. I thought I might drown because I couldn't keep afloat and laugh that hard at the same time. I looked up at the clouds as water gushed around my face from the deep laughter and thought, "This is how I used to be. This is how I will be again."

Slowly, I feel the stress of my old life leaving. At night I feel the numbing fingers of worry less and less. I've even had the urge to write human interest pieces again...one of my favourite things to do before things got "serious." There are so many stories here. There is so much left unsaid. For now I'll simply let this blossoming feeling of hope bloom in my belly a little longer...