I’m having a hard time finding the words to describe where I was for the last two weeks (which, for the record, was Tahiti.) Stunning sounds trite, gorgeous is too understated and paradise sounds cliché. It was all those things and so much more, and really the story should be told in photos. The only problem is my camera had a meltdown at the end of day two, so it’ll be a few days until I can get my hands on some shots that show how truly incredible the trip was.
But, as with most of my journeys since September, there was one moment that stood out from the rest.
read more ↓My Tahitian trip started in first class on Air Tahiti – a pleasant surprise. From there, me and my fellow journalists landed in Papaetee and spent the night and hopped a plane the next morning for Nuku Hiva, where we inhabited hillside bungalows overlooking the bay. There was hiking, waterfall swimming and sacred site visiting, but the highlight of the island had to be watching the locals prepare for a dance competition. The men were equally as passionate about it as the women, who sang angelically as 15 or 20 people drummed rhythmically in the background. The songs still haunt me. I wish I’d been able to record it.
From there it was off to Huahine, where I stayed in my first over-water bungalow. The seas were a crystal clear turquoise with a visibility so incredibly clear that I could count the grains of sand when looking at the sea floor from my balcony. On my first night after dinner I stripped down to go skinny dipping out my back door. It was incredibly peaceful, floating in the water and staring up at the sky. The following afternoon we went shark feeding and snorkled for a couple hours. It was bliss.
Our next stop was Raiatea, where we stayed in water bungalows once again and went on a motu picnic, then snorkeling in the coral reef gardens, where I fed the fish, eels and other random sea animals. The next day was a hike through the forest that saw us get soaked by tropical rain, but it was lovely all the same.
One more stopover in Papaetee meant one last plane trip to our final island: Manihi. As Kristen put it, “This is my kind of island.” Small with only 400 inhabitants, flat land with white sand, palm trees and sea… I could feel the last shreds of stress melt from my shoulders as we hopped in our golf cart, which whisked us two minutes away from the airport to our hotel. It may have been the third time I was in an over-water bungalow, but it was the best by far. I opened the door to allow hardwood floors to lead me to my king-size bed, which – bathed in white – was sitting atop a platform. The bathroom behind it was an open-air concept, where you could close the shutters to section it off from the bedroom or leave them open for the air to circulate. I had a day bed on one side, a desk on the other, and in the center of the room, a coffee table with a removable glass top so that I could feed the fish.
The fish… oh, the fish. Colorful and graceful, they swirled beneath my bungalow weaving in and out of the coral, which Kristen and I immediately went snorkeling through as soon as we changed into our bikinis. A little poisson cru for lunch – raw fish with veggies and coconut milk – and then the spa, where I completely lost every worry, every fret, every fear that was inhabiting my body. By the end of my first day I was certain I could live the island life quite happily.
It was the second last night that really shifted something in me, though. With all the release and letting go that I’d been experiencing, my spiritual practice was taking on a new life. I was able to disconnect and tune in during meditation in a way that I hadn’t been able to do… well, ever, I guess. So that night after dinner I went back to my room and opened up the balcony door so I could hear the waves gently crashing against my bungalow’s stilts. Two lamps made out of conch shells sat on my nightside tables, so I turned them on and they cast a warm orange glow over the room. The light in my coffee table illuminated the fish below, and just so I had a little privacy, I pulled the sheers shut. They billowed out gracefully as the winds drew them across the balcony.
And I stood there. I stood there at the end of the bed in complete peace, watching the billowing sheers, listening to the crashing waves, feeling warm and happy and whole, and I had a thought:
I wish I had someone to share this with.
And it was immediately followed by another thought:
I do – me.
In that moment it became crystal clear to me that I had to stop obsessing over what kind of man I wanted to share my life with. It’s kind of funny, but I could sit here and list off a million things I don’t want in a man or a relationship – I’ve had enough failures in that department to warrant volumes of text dedicated to the experiences I’d never want to repeat, the things I’d never want to say or have said to me, the pains and disconnects and emotional bullshit I’ve had to endure, or even that I’ve inflicted. But the more I thought about that, the more I started telling myself, “Okay then, we know what you don’t want, but what about what you do want?” And coming up with that list has been infinitely harder. I have no idea how to express that. It sounds so silly to say, but it’s so damn hard.
So instead I decided that what I need to do is focus on becoming the woman that I want to be and allow the man that’s attracted to that to make himself known. And I don’t expect that man to be without his flaws or baggage – it would be hypocritical and unrealistic of me, ‘cause I have more than enough of my own. He just needs to be able to deal with it and not run away, emotionally or otherwise. But I feel like focusing on the man rather than myself just kind of defeats the purpose, really. I’ve always put everyone else ahead of myself, and it’s always left me drained and broken. So maybe the key this time is to focus on myself the whole way through and be the person that I want to be in a relationship in order to bring that relationship to fruition.
Anyway. I’ve got five articles to write in a day and a half. My journey begins again Monday with a short two-day jaunt to Disneyland to cover their Christmas festivities, then it’s off to the Bahamas on Wednesday morning, back the following Monday, and then off to a place that I’ve secretly always wanted to be but never thought I’d go to.
More sooner or later…. And I hope you’re having a fantastic holiday season. (Don’t doubt my dedication to Christmas this year, just because I’m not obsessively blogging about it. I decorated my place during one of my 24-hour layovers at home.)
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