What is it about this place specifically (Koh Phi Phi Don, Thailand) that intimidates me and brings my demons up? Why is it that being in a place full of friends partying and beautiful people can make me feel so inferior? The island itself is absolutely astounding! Beauty beyond words and beyond what I’ve experienced before now. So many different cultures represented here. Different lifestyles and body types — and yet collectively they’ve seemed to overwhelm me. Although traveling while being financially responsible and spending less than most people here, (I’m living in paradise and many aspects of my dreams — of which I’v’e been visualizing and dreaming about for most of my life; for as long as I can remember) its interesting to me because the circumstances that Should worry me most — like the fact that I’m homeless and that tomorrow my last severance paycheck will hit my account — those things don’t affect me nearly as much as the idea of my soul dying while living the “American Dream”.

I moved to San Francisco from Washington, DC less than 2 years ago knowing that there was something incredibly important for me to learn or receive from living there. Now, having left, I know that the greatest gift of moving there came in the form of absolute misery in living the life that so many intentionally pursue. In it I found little to no depth, passion or euphoric experiences; no breath, no life, and very little joy. I did, however, feel complete and total exhaustion and frustration; being trapped in the never-ending cycle of doing something I didn’t enjoy to create success for a company who didn’t care about me or my success and future, surviving by any means necessary — most of which were detrimental to my health — in order to get to the next weekend so I could continue to indulge in escapism in order to survive another week. Each week getting more difficult to survive — the feeling of suffocation creeping in on me like I imagine being buried alive might feel — watching every moment but feeling completely helpless in digging myself out, thereby freeing myself from the death of my soul that was so obviously imminent.

I guess I could give in to the stress. I could worry about what’s next and how I might survive choosing this life with no idea how to sustain its longevity, but in the very moment I consider it, I’m completely overtaken with the joy and gratitude to be LIVING MY LIFE — even the very life I CHOOSE, right now…even if only for this moment — and I’m left in a state that I can only describe as unbelief mixed with absolute bliss, causing me to laugh and cry in the same moment or better known as EUPHORIA.

The idea that I don’t have to wait to live my life and I don’t have to live vicariously through others’ experiences — the idea of which never felt real to me before now — and yet, here I sit in one of the most glorious places I’ve ever seen (I’ve been collecting pictures of this exact place online for years as I dreamed of one day being here!) and the reality is so much greater than I could have ever hoped for. The reality is my life’s revival — my resurrection from the walking dead — the ability and promise to live my life here and now to the absolute fullest and with every expectation of my dreams fulfilled.

This is merely the start of my life’s journey…the beginning of LIFE and fully LIVING.