Leaving My Paradise Island

If there is one thing I have learned about small towns, it is how you need to get out as soon as you possibly can. Now, this is not a negative post about small towns what so ever. I grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii in the town of Kailua Kona. The population is less than 50,000 and I absolutely love my town. It a paradise beyond measure with all climates, people filled with love, and magic encompassing the entire plane of existence. An anomaly in the middle of the pacific ocean to say the least. It will forever be my happy place and I will probably raise my kids there when or if I ever decide to settle down, (or get a husband!)

Growing up in Kona, I could walk down the street and always see someone that I knew. I went to the same school with 90% of the same crazy kids from preschool till high school, and even my first semester of college. People have this unspoken bond when you grow up on the Big Island. It posses an alluring power to convince you to never leave, and to build your life there. Everyone feels it. It can be that special light in your heart that will always comfort you when you feel out of place. The people who live there are all your family, and they all understand this power of love that lives in the air. You feel like time never moves. This feeling is what some consider paradise, but sometimes, if you are there long enough, the all attractive power of the island will sink its truth teeth into you. You start to realize that everyone gives you the mindset of never leaving. There is an invisible expectation that you will never grow up here, you never go out into the world and explore, learn, experience anything past this island life because the outside world is just too much for many people. I have had many experiences where teachers in my high school tell my classmates and I that we will probably never leave, that we will be beach bums and not even go away for college. Adults I would meet as a teenager never asked if we would live somewhere else or go anywhere other than Hawaii when we grew up. Not that they were trying to say we would never amount to anything, but that is just the mindset at there.

When I was home, I saw how many people I grew up with got sucked into the island’s roots. It is like they have a fear of leaving. Going out into the city and exploring. Because of this, they adjust there wants, desires, and goals to the size of the island. Tiny compared to what is possible. Not wanting anything that they couldn’t have on the island. Their mindset becomes so limited that they just do not realize the exponential potential the world has. What kind of things are out past the life of the island. It is so interesting because I couldn’t imagine a life like that. I guess you could say that my curiosity was so powerful, it skinned any kind of island root that attempted to attach itself to me. The simple life was just not for me.

I admit, in my adolescence, I had thoughts of staying on the island, having a big family consisting of a husband and 10 kids. Living the island life. Surfing every day, getting to see you’re the friends that you grew up with all the time, working in the most beautiful place in the world. I think about going back from time to time, but then I think about all of the world I haven’t explored yet. All the beautiful possibilities. That’s why as soon as I could leave for college I set sailed and never looked back. After my first brush with living in a new place, I fell in love. I didn’t care about the fear of not knowing any one, not knowing where every store or restaurant was. I relished in the fear and excitement of exploring a new place. It could have been living on the streets or slumming it and I would have been excited. While going to college, I always thought about the next affair with life I could make reality. I Traveled during the breaks, taking mini road trips, and finding little wonder-lust adventures I could go on in bursts. My best friends jumped at any chance to plan an adventure with me. These little trips kept me going through my first 2 years of college in California, but I soon felt a little anxiety fairy tapping on my shoulder and whispering words like “You won’t be able to see all of the world at that speed, my dear.”

Yes I know, having anxiety about these things isn’t really a good thing for most people, but having anxiety fueled by my curiosity has pushed me to experience all that I’ve had. It has even lead me to think differently about freedom and my life.

Always thinking about my next trip and being stuck in one place for college, I started to see if I could make something work. I looked into transferring schools across the country, or abroad programs. They all seemed like good ideas, but then, one sexy idea parked itself in my head one day while I was doing research on remote jobs. Why not go to school remotely? Excitement flooded my body and I went to work researching all of these online schools, possible degrees, the works. If I wasn’t ridden with guilt of responsibility, I honestly wouldn’t have even gone to school. Though I am now finishing school online, I can’t say that I don’t miss the memories I made there and how much I’ve learned. I do however get to do things on my own terms. I get to learn whatever I want from my online degree, and I also get to have life and mother nature as my teacher. In my last 2 years of being location independent, I have learned more than I could even fathom. I have met the most amazing people and have had the grandest of experiences all because I decided to be free. To live.