It’s funny how we can get so attached to people. Places. Laughter. Oceans. Certain skies. And then – as life would have it – we go our separate ways. Not really knowing when or how we will once again reunite, we’re left to wonder if that time will ever even come to pass.

Plans shattered, kiboshed, really. We search for somewhere to go.

So we mentally check out. move out. Where we live off in the distant memory land of sunshine and laughter and good company. It’s the best place to live, really. Warm. Happy. Simple. Where the prettiest of flowers blossom and thrive and grow wild. Where the light sparkles and shimmers off of the water. Where your soul soars and your heart flutters and the sun glows a warm heat on your skin. Slow, like glitter falling through the sky – it’s a beautifully faded memory. A beautifully faded memory that can be pieced back together whenever your soul so needs it.

And it seems to need it a lot.

My spirit free and my heart wild, I find it hard to keep still. I’ve always been this way. Adventure craving, passionate, growth driven.

Content, though, never seeming to be settled.

I know there’s more.

Ironically, nowadays I often find myself lost, somewhere off in the limitless bounds of my imagination, abstracted from the harsher reality I face. My soul restless, I crave to be home. I know this is temporary, but la-la land – I like it better there.

Knowing there’s more just doesn’t seem to cut it for my longing for the goodness of the past kind of self.

What do you do when your heart screams for adventure but you can’t get it? When you’ve got somewhere to be but no way of getting there? You were full speed ahead on the way to never never land – but your tire blew with no spare on hand.

People like me… well, we try to make do with what we have. So we adventure far off into the distant memory land of sunshine and laughter and good company.

We escape the fact that what sets our souls on fire is out of reach.

Leaving reality in front of us, we close our eyes and take a step backwards.

Look up.

Dreams will take you further.

Dreams will guide you forward.

Stop dawdling in the past.

Look up.

You may just find that the rejuvenation your soul so desperately needs isn’t so far out of reach, but rather, it is right in front of you. Beyond the hygge of your fabricated happy place, there is something calling you to a greater purpose. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hard. It’s just not so nice. But dig into the depths of who you are.

Adventure. Passion. Growth.

You know there’s more.

Let the beauty and excitement and goodness of the past curate a beautiful and exciting and good now.

Goodbye la-la land.

So I think of the coastal reefs of the South Pacific Islands.

Sea life bountiful, sounds echoing, colours and light shining and reflecting like I’ve never seen before. Euphoric. Dreamy, really.

Why would you ever want to leave this place?

And the simple answer is:

Because there is more. There is always more.

So we press on in the face of doubt and of the unknown –

for we know, that there is far more – abundantly more – beyond the reef.

Oh hello, reality, my old friend. 

How have you been?