After completing 4 days of my trip, I have already learned so much. These aren't necessarily brand new things... I've been told some of this stuff several times... but having a chance to experience the situations in a different environment, having a chance to pause and reflect right after, having the chance to quiet everything else in life and focus on these moments... it brings those lessons out in a new light.
The first thing I'm learning is perfectly summed up in this quote I saw at the city market in Charleston, SC - "Falling down is a part of LIFE, Getting back up is LIVING". Life isn't going to perfect all the time - as proven in the MANY things that have gone wrong since the day before my trip. My car wasn't ready on time, the parts didn't fit, I left a day and a half late, it rained, my car wouldn't start, my DampRid spilled (3 times), I couldn't find parking downtown, I brought crabs "home"..., I crushed a gift, I killed a crab, I sunk half way up my shins in mud, I didn't have a memory card in my camera, I'm likely missing something and the list will inevitably grow as I continue traveling, because... that's life. However, if I had let all of those keep me down, make me turn around, or give up, I would have missed out on meeting Steve who gave me a free history lesson on Rainbow Row, missed out on finding a beautiful, perfect shell WITHOUT a crab living in it, missed out on meeting Norma (a sweet lady from Columbus, Ohio who was certain I was 18 and couldn't stop telling me how brave I was), missed out on seeing dolphins play in the water as the sunset behind them, and missed out on all the really awesome things to come. I'm really great at falling down... it's the not always getting back up that needs to change.
Along with that, I'm learning that the good deserves as much, if not more attention than the bad. For some reason, I forget to mention in videos when really awesome stuff happens - like being expecting to have to pay a ridiculous price for parking only to have the machine break so I got out for free, like being bummed that the bike rental place on one of the islands wouldn't open for another 2 hours only to find that that worked in my favor because using my car turned out to be way better and easier, like being given a rose handmade with a palm leaf by a guy named Johnny in Forsyth Park, like wishing for a pedaling taxi to take me the mile to the park and having one come around the corner right at that moment, like having an amazing older brother who is always just a phone call away when I have car trouble and always helps me problem solve and keep me calm in those moments, and all the others that have already been forgotten and are still to come. For some reason, the bad is easier to remember and hold on to, but that needs to change.
Tied to the previous two, I'm learning I need to slow down. Many of the things that have "gone wrong" could have been avoided if I just slowed down. Slowing down and thinking it through would allow me time to listen to the little thought of "you're gonna forget and it will spill" or "you're going to forget and you're going to run it over". Slowing down would have allowed me to better check my car before going to bed, remember other things to check for before taking shells, and get my car checked 2 weeks before I left and not the day before. A wise woman, possibly the wisest I know (aska: my mother) told me as long as I learn from my mistakes, then that's all that matters. How fast I'm constantly operating needs to change.
I am learning. Learning to accept the bad and appreciate the good. Learning to slow down so I can decrease the bad and increase the good. Learning is a process though. I won't get it right away, but with patience, time, and intention I will get there.
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