Significant

Why yes, I am aware that my broken hair needs some help. But hey, at least I've got length!

This evening, as the sun was slowly setting, I took my Kindle out to our veranda. I’m reading a series that I really love (it’s called Wool, written by Hugh Howey—the first book is free on Amazon so go read it!), but after just a couple of pages I was finding that I was much more interested in just enjoying the perfect breeze and looking at the beautiful pink sky and thinking. And for the first time since moving here, I loved Grenada. And that’s significant.

Oh sure, I’ve liked Grenada before. Liked it as a friend. A friend who’s nice to talk to and fun to hang out with, but it’s not like I wanted to be with it 24/7 and grow old together with it. So sure, I've liked Grenada often enough, but I never really like liked it, and I certainly didn’t love it. But as of tonight, I do. (Maybe not in a grow-old-together way, but at least in a long-term-relationship way.)

Sitting out there in my shorts and t-shirt on the veranda, looking out on our gorgeous, very private backyard and letting myself enjoy the breeze, I felt at home. The palm trees were comfortable. The sky was comfortable. The fact that I'm surrounded on all sides by vast oceans was comfortable. I enjoyed the fact that I can literally do whatever I want here most afternoons (more often than not I want to sit in my air-conditioned room and read or write or sort laundry, but I’m coming to terms with the okay-ness of that), and I even enjoyed the sounds of the chirping insects (but not the tree frogs).  It was the feeling that I get when I go on a summer campout, but minus the sleeping on the ground part. You know, the feeling of sitting by the fire at dusk and watching the stars appear, and taking in the beauty and quiet of the surrounding forest, and just being at peace.

Tonight was significant not for the excellent weather or for the especially lovely sunset. It was significant because it was a turning point. I truly believe that once I decide that I love something (or someone, or some place) and I remind myself of that feeling often, there’s no turning back, even on imperfect days. When I began working at Campus Floral after my freshman year in college, I loved the job immediately. I loved my coworkers and being surrounded by flowers and learning new skills every day. I remember walking from the library, up over the bridge, and past the Marriot Center on my way to work and consciously thinking, “Wow, I love my job.” Daily! And I think that by telling myself that every day, it made the long days, or the days when an angry customer called in, fine. Sure there were sticky parts of the job, but unlike most other jobs I’ve had (not the dream job I have now though), I never really thought to myself, “Nah, I don’t love this. Please let it be time to move on to something else.” If today is any indicator of how I’m going to be feeling during the next year and a half in Grenada, and I think it is, then all the insane ups and downs (and more downs) of the past 7 months will have been worth it.

Up until today, I’ve put on a happy face when I left the house, but there was always this subconscious feeling of being trapped and counting down the days until we would be able to move on to the next phase of life. To the phase that is in a more familiar country, and where I can text my family members at annoying times of the night. But not anymore. Because now I love it here. Even if only by myself, during those perfect dusk hours, looking out from our back veranda. I love it here. And that is significant.