I am connecting with you from a remote, dreamy island surrounded by nothing but the ocean. Unfortunately, confined by time at this stage of my life, but on the bright side, not for much longer.
Today, a half way through my 10-day trip ( when the initial WOW-feeling has subsided), it hit me, I am getting stressed out. Hmm…
I am on the, let’s call it, school break. I’ve got 2 months left before the scheduled end-of-the-year exams (3rd year of Osteopathy degree) and it is a hectic time, with a lot of ‘oh shit’ moments and a soul-crashing amount of new content to be digested and befriended before the 18th of May, about 7 weeks away. I am beyond a half-way point of my degree, so it already feels pretty reassuring – not because of how difficult and intense this degree is (even though, yeah, that too) or because I had doubts about my abilities to ace this, BUT (!) because sooner than later, I WILL GET MY LIFE BACK! I am pretty sure, all the med-students feel similarly. Shitload to learn and remember, just to forget it in a few months, learn it again and apply in practice, forget half of it, and re-learn it a few times more over the span of the next years. You catch my drift, things are H.E.C.T.I.C.!
So here I am, in one of the most dreamy locations on the map, Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, in this very Spanish, 3-bedroom house we have found on AirB&B, with a spacious terrace overlooking the cliff and sloping right into the Atlantic ocean. With the sky so blue, and ocean so calm, you catch yourself breathless and checking if, by any chance, it is not a dream. The view TO DIE FOR.
I am enjoying myself tremendously doing morning stretches in the sun, sipping coffee in a tiny, porcelain cup, making sounds of enjoyment with every sip, reading the Spanish novel I have purchased specifically for this trip, strolling down the beach holding my husband’s hand, watching the waves gently stroke the coast.
I am here. I am where my feet are. Am I though? I keep checking with myself. Because it is so easy to let your thoughts travel from here and now.
One minute I am thinking : THIS IS IT! This is exactly what we needed, wanted and waited for when times were hard.
But before I know it… my attention… drifts to another postcode.
Why do I need to go back? I don’t like my hectic life in the city. I don’t even like people that much. The commute sucks. I’ve got an exam the day after we land. Ah Shit! Nevermind, only 2 years left. I just need to suck it up a little bit more.
I won’t be able to travel that much in the next years. Damn, I should have landed a well-paid corporate job like I initially planned in high-school, make a fortune in my 20s, buy a property just like this one, when it was on the market. It is too late now, damn, all the properties with this mind-blowing view are off-the-market and rented out, no wonder! view like that! Someone is making some goooood money here, hmm… this is how all my mornings should be like, I would be so much helathier and rested, all that Vitamin D! man, London will be miserable as F***, Anna, focus, enjoy now, stop thinkingABOUTthisNONSENSE,youALWAYSdoTHIS, master of OVERTHINKING, stop it, chill!
So here I am, looking at the sea, having this PERFECT moment, perfect view and I am ruining it! These fickle, intrusive thoughts invade my mind like a swarm of locusts and destroy all the peace!
Ruminating, Overthinking. It is a specifically human ailment. We are so advanced, capable of creative thought, intelligent designs, intricate analysis and yet disastrously prone to catastrophizing, creating completely absurd stories about ourselves that hold us back from enjoying the simple, perfect moments and getting paralysed by self-imposed expectations, comparisons that utterly destroy the joy of any achievement or simply LIVING.
I see the beauty around me and yet my terrified mind counts the days left: ”Oh no, Oh no’‘ . I feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, and yet a part of me is seeing the cloudy English skies because this is where my unresolved business is.
This is what I mean by the perfect moment fallacy guys. We believe that IF ONLY I had a perfect view in front of me, and could sit just chill on the beach, or live in the sunny place, our lives would be SO MUCH better! But what you realise when you get there… it is not the perfect conditions that make life awesome, but rather it is our state of mind that makes it awesome. The ability (that we are not born with unfortunately) to enjoy life and all of its moments, despite the conditions we are in: rain or sun, a city or a village, Spain or UK. This is what we must strive for, because wherever we go, we take ourselves (and the gremlins inside of us) with us. So no, the sun will not clear the intrusive thoughts for long, and the ocean breeze will not blow out the self-deprecating stories we nestle between our ears. Only some mental training, and ability to bring yourself to NOW, will do it.
But it’s okay. First step is awareness. then we go to work… lots of mental training ahead I gotta say.
For now, I am putting the books and screens away and locking all the expectations, worries and comparisons in the suitcase, as I am heading out to use all my senses, out there, on the beach, with no SHOULDs on my mind.
Leave a Reply