I expected to meet the warm tropical breeze hitting my skin the second I stepped out of the airplane. It reminds me each time: hey, you’re home now. It’s like an island kiss. The Hawaiian flight attendants on the ground smile as usual.
I’m semi-delirious, having only slept four and a half hours the night before. I had a weekend in San Francisco where I saw, one-on-one, at least seven of my dear friends, most of whom are men.
I miss my guy friends. I don’t have any deep guy friends in Hawaii—deep… meaning the kind I can sit on the couch with, where we sit close and maybe even hold onto each other’s feet and share deeply how we’re doing.
We cry together, we play together, we get goofy together.
We go on walks, cook, dance, make bonfires, and get giddy over good coffee and yummy delicata squash made with maple syrup and Bragg’s liquid aminos, baked just right.
I miss them.
I miss my old roommate too— I got to see her. She brought me to a random hostel near a lighthouse on the edge of a cliff below Pacifica. She wanted to try it, and I said, why not. It was an adventure together.
I miss the depth.
I have this depth with my clients, but who do I have here to meet me in that space?
I have one… kind of. But she just had a baby, and moms with babies who were friends usually disappear. It saddens me.
So I arrive back in Hawaii after being filled with all sorts of yummy, deep soul connection.
I am picked up by a new friend. It’s so lovely and kind of him. But we’re just getting to know each other.
As we drive, I notice the houses. I used to just notice the ocean and the wild nature.
“Geez, these houses are really dilapidated,” I comment.
“Yeah,” he says.
I notice the tin roofs rusting, the corroding wood and chipping paint, vegetation sprouting out of roofs.
We pass Kaya’s and the Coffee Shack, both super popular places for coffee and brunch. I look at the buildings—they really are shacks, aren’t they? They look termite-ridden, and if you blew hard enough, they might blow over. I think of my own house.
I try to focus on the large ocean view, the trees, and the elements I’ve placed in the home that I find aesthetically pleasing.
I purposefully try to ignore the mildew gathering under the ceiling, the wrinkled carpet that the landlord hasn’t gotten stretched after the recent storms and flooding in the house.
When I walk in, I notice the paint chipping. The deck has holes where the termites are devouring the house little by little. The grass is wild and tall. Gecko poop is all along the front doorstep.
The heat and humidity hit me as I walk in. It is kind of stuffy in here, isn’t it? I’ve been deliberately ignoring that fact for the last two years.
My bed is still welcoming after a nice cold shower and a power nap.
I want to squeeze in a dip in the ocean. It’s my ritual when I arrive—to reset and ground.
I hop in my car. I had this illusion of my car being so beautiful, but when I get in, I suddenly notice a stream of dried hot chocolate on the dash, sand in all the crevices, the faded leather, and cracked seat coverings. It only has 68,000 miles, but it feels like a beater car.
I drive down to the local dive spot. It’s filled with tourists that I generally try to ignore.
I pop on my swimsuit and notice my belly puffed out from a late meal last night and unshaven hairs peeking out the sides of my bikini. My face is white with zinc sunscreen, and I feel ten times less beautiful than I used to.
I walk across the rocks, where normally I walk with my chest high, feeling like the sexy, Hawaiian-looking local girl with my tattoo and tanned skin. But today I just feel like one of them—ordinary, not special—with my little pooch of a belly and my white face that looks like a geisha without the lips.
I dive into the ocean with expectation. This always makes me feel better. I notice how cold it is. It takes a bit of effort to even want to jump in. This will be good for me, I think.
I swim past the other floating marshmallows with their foam noodles, life jackets, and Costco snorkels. I have the habitual thought: they must see I’m a local, look how fast I swim. It’s stupid, but I do it every time. I dive down and do my mermaid-tail swim, wondering if my butt cheeks are flapping around in the water in a grotesque fashion like I’ve seen others.
I hope they are admiring how long I can hold my breath, and simultaneously, I don’t really care.
I swim far away from them and get to the deep parts where the coral descends down to about 80 feet. It looks dead. I say to myself, it’s all dead here.
I see the familiar tang and parrotfish that I used to adore and think, hmm, they’re still here—boring.
I glance at the cauliflower coral and the big yellow mounds of living coral. It used to make me so happy, but today I notice the dead brown coral beneath. The fish hang around the live coral, and near the dead stuff, they just swim by.
How had I not seen this before? I think. Did Hawaii change, or am I just changing?
This morning I sit down to meditate, connect with the island, and ask it to show me its essence. I used to feel the power of the volcano, the healing energy of the land and vegetation, the incredible vibrational frequency of the water. Today I get flashes of the dump I have not seen, trash beach in the south of the island, the dead coral, the dilapidated houses, the Hawaiians living jam-packed with their whole family in a small house. I see the white tourists in their resort bubble, filled with coral-killing sunscreen and plastic bottles of water that get burned somewhere on the island.
I see Costco as our only means of survival and the loss of a sustainable culture.
Yes, this too is Hawaii.
I ask the island, what is my journey this time?
Disillusionment is the word that comes up.
See things as they are, not for what you want them to be.
I realize I’m doing this with everything—from my partner to the friends I’ve met on the island to Hawaii itself.
I had been losing some of the euphoria of novelty, the pedestal I have put it all on, and now my journey is to see things as they are.
I realize that I’m comparing my Hawaiian friends to my California friends. I’m thinking that Bali might have better coral reefs and maybe I should move. I’ve broken down my partner for all his ineptness a hundred times, wishing he could be the man I built him up to be when I met him.
It is the time of unraveling the illusion.
Okay, what now? I ask.
It says, don’t forget to love. Love more. Love more.
This hits me strangely. Love more.
Keep falling in love. Keep loving, it says.
Yes, it makes sense. As I take off the veil on my eyes—Hawaii, paradise; partner, strong and anchored; friends, warm and always there—this is not what it actually is. It is more, and I have refused to see the other side of the reality I’ve attached to.
I sit and let my face soften. I am getting older. My wrinkles are getting deeper, and I have been fighting the slow aging process.
I refuse to get old, I think, as I now feel my left hip aching from sitting in meditation pose for 30 minutes.
I feel my wrinkles—the ones I try to ignore—stretch and iron out the creases. I feel the lines right in the bridge of my nose, the ones I’m disgusted by. I think of my sunspots, the ones I’m looking to remove with new products. This too is the reality, Carly. You are aging. You are not just the perfect-skinned, sexy model you’ve been your whole life.
The illusion of perfection is disappearing…
Okay, island. The journey now is being with the disillusionment. Embracing both sides. Seeing the termites eating my house while simultaneously enjoying the deep blue horizon line of infinite blue.
Keep loving.
Keep loving my friends as they are. We don’t cuddle, share tears, and soul connections yet—that’s where they’re at—but they’re also really kind and warm. Okay.
I see my beautiful body with my swollen belly and extra wrinkles. This too is the reality, Carly. Don’t hang onto the past, the image of who you want to be.
What is really here?
And can you keep loving even more?
I sit with that. Novelty and euphoric excitement has been my go to. Surround my world with beauty and the image of a good life.
Now I have to hold all of it. Is that really the next chapter. It could make sense if I move to a global scale. Without the capacity to hold all of it, I’ll just keep running looking for the next illusion of paradise whether in a place or a person and wait until the pedestal falls.
Today I think I’ll rest.