Early last year my friend concocted the idea that we should go to Cancun. Many times she has invited me on various trips. I always answered no. Of course, I wanted to go but the usual stopped me...I can't leave the kids, too much responsibility, my job, etc etc..you get the point. This time I thought no and said yes. I really wanted to go. I have always wanted to travel and something this time felt right. So I made the arrangements, paid my part, and started dreaming of blue skies and water.
This would be a good time to tell you that I had only flown once in March of 2009 and nearly had a dozen panic attacks both ways and swore never to do it again. (This is lie, there is an exception...more on that later.) Along comes May, we are set to arrive on Cinco De Mayo. We leave out of St. Louis to Dallas. I breathe, I don't pee myself, amazingly we make it there alive. So we are in Dallas...everything is swell..we shop and stop at a bookstore in the airport. I want to save money but I can and do buy books everywhere so I tell myself this is just a browsing trip. Glancing through a particular wall I come across two books that really interest me. I pause, remember I am not spending until Cancun, then walk on.
We are prepared to board when an announcement is sent that our flight is indefinitely delayed. This makes me nauseous as the longer I waited the more nervous I was bound to be. We decide to sit, then eat, then when hours later we are still there, go for a walk. She wants coffee. There is coffee at the Starbucks attached to the book store. Oh no I already won that war. If I go back will I spend? Can I say no? The answer is maybe. Had this book not been so compelling I would not have bought the second one also...I blame the beckoning display.
This is the book I couldn't let go. I also purchased a book by Cash Peters.
Finally we boarded and to quell the panic rising I settled into my seat and opened her up. I began to read and kept reading, before I knew it Cancun was right under our landing gear and I had not died. Due to our late arrival and the drive to our beautiful Tucancun hotel being a good twenty-five minutes we chose to have a few drinks with friends and turn in. Shows how old I am getting. Anyway after a shower I padded across the stone floor and flounced into the indoor chaise, popped open a Modelo and began to read again.
I never stopped, that book became an extension the entire trip, relaxing, mind opening , and embracing this wonderfully brave women, Rita, as she found herself again after many years of just sleepwalking through life. With each page I was remembering who I was, (the writer who struggled to balance writing and kids), with each chapter I felt stronger, and with each adventure she had, the wanderlust that existed in my soul from childhood slowly came back.
I was in Cancun a week. It took everything in me to hold off reading the last few pages of freedom I was discovering in a strangers story until I arrived home. I needed to finish it at home and alone. I think I needed to know that I could hold that book in my hands at home and feel the same way I did being thousands of miles away. To know it wasn't just the draw of the salty warm air and collected seashells luring me into a false sense of excitement.
I arrived late in the evening, had dinner with the kids, listened to their week without me, and turned in early.
When I awoke, I sent the kids off to school, and set out to unpack. My eyes settled on "the book", immediately I knew it was the right time to finish it. By the last paragraph I knew that change was coming. I knew that a direction had been charted.
Months have passed, almost a full year now, and while the changes for the most part have been small I remind myself of something I taught my oldest child when trying to learn. Baby steps.
For years I have been letting the external pressures get to me, to mar my day, to rule everything from my mood to my radio. I am done. I am taking my life back. Back to the delicious liberation I felt when I was that girl living on the edge.
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