It's been almost two months now and I am slowly beginning to realize that I actually did this, I said I was going to move to an island and I did it! Many people have this dream for a long time but I didn't even like visiting islands until I was in my 30s. I thought beaches were boring and had very few activities that I could do. Back in Chicago, I spent most of my time inside, mostly because of the weather but also because I wasn't really an outdoorsy kind of girl. Here, I spend most of my time outside doing all kinds of things from swimming and climbing and lots of stopping to take pictures of random sites that scream tourist when people pass me by.
I do wake up in the morning sometimes as I hear the birds having random fights with each other and contemplate cutting down their tree (no, it doesn't really sound like a lovely bird song), and I have to remind myself that this isn't a vacation, I legitimately live here. It doesn't take long to forget how things used to be as my lawyer days don't seems like yesterday, they seem like a lifetime ago. My body has forgotten the taste of fast food because here it seems very unappealing to go get greasy food when you breathe fresh air all day long and your windows are always open. We have most fast food chains (except Dunkin Donuts for some reason) and most of them are a walk away from my apartment, but I never need a cheeseburger anymore when I'm hungry like I did back home. I do sometimes need to walk in salt water and I do need a Tamarind ball most days, but I do not need greasy fried chicken (sorry KFC).
Time also passes slower here. The weather is always the same here: beautiful. With the consistency of the weather and the people who are always happy to say hello and have a chat, there is a lot to explore and find. My weekends are so long, I forget what happened on Friday, which sometimes is a good thing. Even after two months, I still find ruins I have never seen and beaches that are waiting for their picture moment.
Even with all the beauty, just like anywhere in the world, there are good days and bad days (like the day a gigantic cockroach appeared in my bathtub for a free swim after a hard rain). Not everything is perfect on this island. However, the way people look at hardship and challenges is different here. Most people choose to live here and they also choose to stay here so when a challenge does come up, the prospect of leaving and move stateside presents many more challenges and people choose to stay. I always look out onto the waves of the Sea
Over the last two weeks, I saw baby turtles being born, rum being made and people who just met me welcoming me into their community as if they had known me forever. I even saw my first questionable looking frog sitting on a stairway last night. So while moving to an island may not have been my dream, it seems like there is nowhere else that I would rather be right now.
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