Why can't I make it up?

  I decided to try a writer's group here in our little town of Costa Rica. I've been to one meeting, and I like it. It's nice and informal, at an outdoor restaurant. I decided to not be a big chicken afraid to lay an egg, and check it out. We do some impromptu writing, where we are given a topic, and set amount of time to try and write. To try and engage, to try and be creative. My biggest problem so far is not making things up. It's been about real life. There are weekly assignments too. Everything I've done so far has been pretty much true. Does my life require embellishment? No, it's pretty unique all on it's own.

  There was an assignment involving expectations vs what really ends up happening. I could invent a new creature in a 10th dimension named Chirana, but I wrote about giving birth to my first child. Then an alternative piece on death. This week the topic was:

Major transformation of a character. Physical, emotional, change of location. (I have that covered in real life!)

I have to pull it together with some serious editing and making it shorter, and pulling together the good parts. But this is my starting point.

 

  I came to Costa Rica for a one month vacation from a very busy life.

 That was 5 months ago, and I don’t know how to go back there. My old life is for the old me. There is no Pura Vida in Utah! The problem is, I stepped outside of the rat race and I realized something. Even if I win, I’m still just a rat. I don’t want to be a rodent. I want to be a howler monkey.

  I’m not who I once was. It feels like I’ve lived a lifetime in 6 months. You can’t unbake a cake. I had all of the ingredients within me. The flour, and eggs, and sugar, and so on with the metaphor. They don’t mean as much when you set them next to each other on the counter. But when you take measured steps to prepare and combine them – you are ready to get cooking. Then you apply heat: for me it was 83 degrees for 2 weeks. Even when the cake comes out of the oven, it’s not ready to eat. It has to cool down. Then it gets iced and decorated, and put on a platter for display. Then people take a piece, dig in with a fork, and decide how much they like it. It might be too late to change anything at that moment. However, it’s never too late to bake another cake.

 

  I thought I would go a bit crazy with my life grinding to a dead stop. But silence isn’t empty. It’s full of answers. I was not on auto-pilot any more. Everything was new and different and required a new way of thinking. I went from being the teacher, to being one who has a lot to learn about tropical living. I found out that my favorite game is called What If? And I get to make up the rules! I hate how I used to “should” all over myself. Now I don’t give a “should”.

  It’s not just all the benefits of Vitamin D, starting with the tan line. It’s the magnificent change from a neutral face, to one that smiles. I started noticing how a person’s face will completely shift when they flex those grin muscles. This was where it manifested best – in my own smile! I was happy. The biggest game changer in Life is Love. I was in love with constant happiness! I was in love with the changes that come from eating healthy foods and riding a bike on the beach. I feel I am no longer getting older, I’m am getting healthier. I’m addicted to wealth instead of money.

   I told my program director I would be gone for one month. At the 2 week mark so much had changed that I gave my 2 week notice at work.  Those 2 weeks revolutionized me. I set down my cell phone. No texts, no phone calls. So strange. No lesson plans, no new projects with deadlines, no requests to help anyone with anything, no need to wear a watch. Very odd. No car, so no driving. Few people who spoke English, so a lot less conversations with friends, although a lot more with my 2 best friends: my husband and my mother. No make up, no jewelry, no weather reports, no lists of my To-Do lists.

   Which question was more pressing: How would my old life survive without me? Or, how would I survive without all of that old life to define me? When I was tired of thinking too much, I would just take another picture of a sunset on the water. Once I set foot in paradise,  I knew I didn’t want to go back to the chaos. I wanted to hold on to the constant state of being amazed. 

  I felt so young and free. Was it the sunshine? Was it the lack of fast food? Was it the lush 4,000 shades of green colored vegetation all around? Was it going from being a mile high in the mountains to being at sea level? Was it the sound of the waves? Was it the lack of layers of clothes, because I could just wear a bathing suit all day (and I have!). Was it all the added hours to spend with my husband? He had been going to school full time for the last year. I had 2 jobs for a while, and we had a 9 year old grandson living with us. 2016 was quite the year.  I transformed my mind and body in a sultry  village on the beach, what about my soul??   I had time to get inside my own head, my own heart: and that union is the where the soul takes it’s shape . I had time to stare out at the ocean, or gaze into the clouds, or examine a leaf. I didn’t have to go back. That thought modified everything that came afterwards.

  Thoughts become things. I converted my thinking from what I thought I was capable of, to what I wanted with such passion that it just had to happen. My world is literally a different place. And that place is in the jungle. I have never in my life been so relaxed and content. Every second of life is a process of transformation. The minute it doesn’t seem that way is the minute we stop appreciating what it’s all about. Being aware is the key. So is feeling the power of shaping your future with your present. I went on vacation and it re-wrote my future.