So, while I’ve thought this blog and this homecoming is about a return to Morocco…a place that grabbed my soul and hasn’t loosened its grip since I met her, I think the bigger thing happening is a homecoming to myself. I have no idea what I’m doing or what will happen. I put everything I own into storage, arrived with two suitcases and my typewriter, which for the record is absolutely one suitcase too many. Even if you think you’re going to live somewhere. I think none of this makes sense to most people in my life, but this decision to step off the path, is the truest decision I’ve ever felt. And who knows. It could be a disaster. But it could also be amazing. I just know if I didn’t try, if I didn’t get on the plane with no plan but to listen, it would be THE thing on my deathbed that would fill me with remorse and regret.
This past year was the most heart wrenching and difficult of my life. So much of what I had built, fell away. So much of what I knew, shifted. I think it was all built on a foundation that wasn’t quite mine. A foundation that was normal and what it “should” be. But not what I am. Not what I could be if I followed my heart instead of the rules. The guidelines. The well wishes. I’m a rule follower. It’s served me well in my life. If you look on the surface, I’m successful in all the ways you’re supposed to be, and yet I’ve never all the way felt like I’m living my own life. I’ve felt like I’ve been playing a part, living a story, but I’ve never embodied it, I’ve never participated in it down to my bones because it’s never really felt mine.
And so, now that I’ve started already…. because sometimes you simply must start things that scare you…like writing a blog….it can become what it will be…. a developing love story with my own heart, a homecoming to my own soul and an adventure along the way…with some reflections on the year that broke me. A time I don’t wish to ever repeat, but one I’m grateful for because without it, I wouldn’t have stepped off the path.
