For several years now, each year we try to go somewhere together.  Our sons are best friends and we are too.  This year, however, is spectacular. I have never been to this island – or many others if I’m honest.  And it is beyond what I would have imagined.  My girlfriend, who missed her calling as an extravagant vacation planner, hooked us up with an amazing HomeAway stay.

We are near the beach but not on it.  The view is amazing from every window in the house.  There is a beautiful pool in our backyard – I use the word loosely because “yard” is hardly what it is. It is a veranda overlooking thickly settled lush green woods and the crystal clear water beyond. This area of the house serves as an anchor each day from morning til night.  This is where we gather to relax. To cook and cocktail. Where the kids go when they are beach burned out or “chilling”.

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I know this is an embarrassing phrase for me to use – me the “Mom”. But I am hard-pressed to find a term that better describes the atmosphere.  There is only peace here.  Quiet wind, blowing through the palm trees and the distant roll of the ocean.  It is most definitely a place to relax, refresh, and reset.

It is 100% chill.

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The family we accompany are seasoned travelers.  They travel many times throughout the year to many different countries and islands.  It is their priority – travel and experiencing life in different places of the world.  I admire this so much.  They are giving their son the best gift – the desire to live globally and experience life in travel. 

Until recently, I haven’t quite had the same need to travel in the same way.   Make no mistake, I have always loved a good vacation.  Typically one where I don’t have to DO anything.  I can just run, sit on the beach or poolside, read, write, and just unload.  However, these vacations have sparked a new desire to travel. 

I have learned from these friends the importance of creating an experiential life.  One that is not focused on “things” but on spending time with good friends and experiencing different environments and ways of life.  I see how this creates gratitude for the life that we otherwise live every day.  The comparison can be so vivid that it is almost too much to see or acknowledge.  By this I mean that when I compare the way I exist on these trips to the way I exist in my everyday life I want to run screaming from the everyday.  Especially now.

Thanks to the world we currently live in, escaping my everyday has become a priority for me.  In these times of distress and uncertainty, the need to run away increases with each day.  I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that, in addition to our current world reality, my age has something to do with this.  I approach so many things from a different perspective – one that I haven’t before had.  The sense that there is no more time to waste.  Time isn’t marching on – it has marched on and left me in a place that resembles nearing the edge of a cliff.  I now feel that the space between me and the edge is crucial and I want to fill it with joy – as much as I can anyway.  And now for me that joy involves letting go of things that don’t fill my cup.  Things that bring me anxiety, stress, disappointment, anger.  Some things I can control.  Some I can’t.  So the ones I can are on the top of the pile.  As I weed through them I intend to fill any void with experiencing more of the world. 

I want to see first hand the beauty of the globe.  I think for me this is a way to release the limitations that I have in every day life.  I am fully aware that the ability to experience these things and leave the sometimes hell of our own reality behind, is a privilege for sure.  It is also a gift I hope to give myself.  

I would never before have said that I necessarily deserve a gift.  But now that I can see the edge, I am embracing the idea that it is more than OK to accept gifts, from others and most importantly from myself.  And I should say that gifts don’t mean things.  Well, to be honest, anyone who knows me knows that sometimes they do.  But more importantly now for me they mean words and experiences – anything that brings joy.  We all deserve that.  And at this stage of the game I am allowing myself to accept that it’s OK for me to be included in the “we”.  

Maybe it is the times we’ve had with these friends.  Maybe it is an escape from reality.  Maybe it is getting older.  Whatever it is, I am embracing it and hope to start experiencing the world and my life in a way that brings me some measure of joy every day.  After all, life is far too short to live without it.