Fireworks Living

Have you ever looked in the mirror and not recognized the person staring back? That’s my experience lately and I think that’s the real meaning of adventure. Losing myself completely in a moment and allowing it transform me from a person to a feeling. Pure joy, paralyzing fear, visceral excitement – real fireworks living.

And right now, I’m so fucking high off of that feeling. Addicted to the adrenaline of jumping illogically into unknown situations.

Get this, two years ago I completely demolished everything big that defined me. I quit my job, got divorced, packed what little I could in my car and moved from Boston to Vermont all in October. And saying that out loud electrifies me. Makes life feel unreal.

Because, my 2019 started like this- me face-down on my bathroom floor scream-crying into a towel on new year’s eve, party raging outside. Fully feeling how dead I felt inside.

I had just turned 30, which isn’t actually a huge deal. But it triggered in me a set of gut-feelings alchemizing into events that would change me forever. Anxiety heightened, I started realizing how much I absolutely despised my career. The banana-republic uniform I needed to play-pretend. Endless ass-kissing while being man-splained. I had imprisoned myself in prescriptive box, stifling the real me inside.

Oh, and, I also realized how unhappy I was in my marriage. My otherwise peaceful but completely sexless, passionless marriage. Perfect on paper (just like my career) painfully safe. And these thoughts thundering inside of me leading me to some cliffs-edge, daring me to jump.

So I did what anyone would do with these scary, life-changing revelations. I shoved them deep-down and self-medicated on edibles and denial.

Then, after months of unhealthy coping mechanisms and about 15 pounds worth of takeout sushi, I was finally sick of my own bullshit.

So, that’s when I booked my flight to India.

3 weeks at the World Peace Yoga School in Rishikesh. The birthplace of yoga and famous spot of The Beatles ashram. A super interesting choice for two reasons. 1) the most exotic place I had ever traveled to up until this point was the Bahamas. And, 2) I wasn’t even a big yoga fan. But, that was the whole point. I needed to shake everything up.

All I was begging for, craving so desperately was some clarity and an answer. What I found was the perfect way to escape the comfortable prison of safety and re-emerge as a complete stranger.

As you can imagine, everyone in my life thought I was going nuts. And to be honest, I was. But what was actually more nuts was doing absolutely nothing and staying miserable forever. So, fuck it all, to India I went.

I was almost immediately singled out as a complete amateur. For one, I didn’t realize I needed a visa to travel to India. So, so stupid, I know. But again – the Bahamas, I’m new here. So I was stuck in New York for about 48 hours while my expedited visa cleared.

Once I finally landed in India, completely dehydrated because I was terrified to drink any of the water on the plane. I met my first yoga classmate. She was a tiny, bubbly, self-proclaimed India expert from San Francisco. Her, in a trendy sarong and bindhi on her porcelain forehead, hair in bouncy curls. Me, in stretched-out leggings and a baggy t-shirt, unwashed hair plastered to the side of my face. In that first interaction I had this flash of “you don’t belong here.”

Grounding me in that moment, though, was a completely unfamiliar sensation. In place of the heavy weight of depression was the orgasmic energy of having no idea what would happen next. That same feeling I told you I’d become addicted to- being consumed by the unknown.

That’s exactly what I got out of India. One sensory explosive experience after another. Synapses I didn’t even know I had firing like crazy.

Like, driving home from the airport 2 cars, 3 cows and a few street dogs all competitively weaving for the same lane of the Himalayan mountain road.

Or, the first day of yoga class – our 3 hour initiation ceremony around a blazing firepit. Us, chanting along with the gurus, throwing Indian spices and ghee into the fiery alter. (shrugs) Looking around the circle at the different faces – Brazil, Australia, Germany, San Francisco – all dewy with the mixture of humidity and anticipation. Me, dripping sweat, my first ceremonial bindhi pouring down my nose onto my white shirt, feeling exposed as an imposter.

But, I got the hang of it. After my first full-moon women’s circle, where we danced intimately with random strangers, circling, worshipping each other as living goddesses, I started to shed my shame and fully pour myself into each experience.

The overt sensuality, spice, sacred space of it all intoxicated me completely.

I truly learned how to love myself in India.

My mantra became “This is who I am, take it or leave it.”

And, I learned how to play again. Like just jumping on the sides of buildings, standing on ledges to get a better view. Exploring unpaved paths of temples deep in the mountains. Wandering aimlessly, a sudden downpour of rain forcing us to hitchhike home on a bus with no idea where it was going because no one spoke English. I was reinitiated into the gripping necessity of fun.

Rewarded with hits of that fireworks living. I was primed for transformation.

I vividly remember the day I quit my job. Big change #1. It was the night of the woman’s circle where I had been worshiped as a goddess. I felt on top of the world like I could do anything. It gave me the wild abandon needed to email my employer giving my instant resignation with no back-up plan in sight.

Soon after, I came alive in a different way. Big change #2. Sexually.

I know I don’t need to tell you this part. But it’s important for me to be fully authentic so that I never again box myself into someone who I’m not. Never Again.

Straight up, while I was in India I had an affair.

And it was the best sex I had ever had in my life…. Like bite-the-wooden-headboard kind of good.

The courage I gained coupled with the ecstasy coursing through my veins was exactly what I needed to firmly exit my old life. I realized that the most painful thing for me is living a life that isn’t truly mine.

So, that’s how I was able to go home with enough conviction for big changes # 3 & 4- to end my marriage and move up to a meditation commune in the NEK of Vermont. This gives me time and space to explore exactly how I want to design my life. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Every day an adventure. I’m finally courageous enough to live just for me. I have no idea where I’m being led, and I’ve abandoned safety for feeling alive. I’m here for the fireworks living.