31/50 Planes, Passports And Crystals

1. I’ll be popping a rock in my bag, possibly my bra

Went on my first crystal expedition today. I was more excited than I thought I’d be and could’ve gone way crazy over all those stunning stones.

I went in knowing not much and came out knowing a bit more. A tiger’s eye for example is a great talisman to keep on you when travelling.

The energy in crystals and being inexplicitly drawn to certain stones is fascinating to me. I have a LOT of questions. Don’t worry, I’ll be hitting up all my spiritual queens and guru Google for more info and I will share it all.

I’ll assume you want to know.

2. Finally

After years of terrible, terrible driving licences, student ID’s and, let’s be honest, every school photo I have FINALLY got a decent enough passport image. One I won’t try and hold my thumb over when I hand it over the counter.

Luckily I was reminded to renew it. This is a keeper.

3. LA and NY 

I’ve had an early birthday gift. It involves sorting my travel crystals and my brand new passport.

I’m Piglet excited.

This last decade has been hard on my little family. We’ve been in financial difficulties that at times have made life such a struggle that the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning was my daughter. I’m immediately conscious of sounding like a first world dickhead, knowing how trivial our problems sound when there are many suffering on a whole other level out there.

For us though, it’s taken me a long time to say it’s been tough. We had to sell our home at a time when my husband lost his job and I struggled to find any contracts. Everything changed and our normal (which, by the way, wasn’t overseas holidays or yachts anyway) became narrowed down to a small window of barely scraping by week by week.

I would avoid friends, as I couldn’t afford coffees or brunch, let alone a night out. School events or opportunities for our girl were a nightmare. I once ended up at a local restaurant with a small group. I did the usual and scanned the menu for the cheapest, which was $8 soup. (Soup! Ugh!) At the end of the night I ended up paying $78. I remember crying all the way home, feeling sick and mad, though it was no ones fault. Our normal was just so out of sync that nobody would think anything of suggesting we split the bill.

I felt ashamed for what was a situation out of our hands. We felt isolated and alone. We’d turn down special occasions, out of town trips and always I’d make excuses. It seemed impossible to say, ‘you know what, it’s not a good time for us right now’. On the rare occasion I did, I felt other people were uncomfortable.

I don’t think anyone, not even our family realised the on-going ramifications of that time. We’re still in it, trying hard to get back on our feet as well as take stock of what sort of situation we’ll be in later in life.

There are so many things I’ll never take for granted again. I won’t forget how diminished we felt.

I also know without a doubt that there was never any shame in our situation. But words were sparse then; the black and white of it all was just too much.

Of course, now you can’t shut me up. Thank you, yoga.

Anyway, all this to say that yesterday my husband, who I quite like anyway, gave me an early birthday gift – two weeks in Los Angeles and New York! This is a trip he’d had ready to give me the year I got pregnant 22 years ago. Not surprisingly life took another, wonderful, direction.

I leave in two weeks, turn 50 in New York and plan on practicing yoga with an accent to suit each borough. I’m eating every meal in LA from Wholefoods and I’ll be swanning around like an ancient hipster, starting the next decade as I mean to go on.

This is a surprise I can get behind.

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I would LOVE it if you’d share any recommendations for NY and LA (I’ll be based in Venice Beach). Thanking you in advance!

Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov

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© The Yoga Connection 2017