I am very grateful to be home.
Here’s Why it feels so good to be in Jamaica right now.
1. So good to hear “Welcome Home Ingrid” shouted to me by a friend in a passing car in Manor Park.
2. In taking my regular cab company and I keep getting picked up by cabbies I know from before I had my 1st car.
3. Walk into Pegasus Hotel lobby and buck up a few people I haven’t seen physically in over a year. One saves my bacon and lends me some $ because my ATM card wasn’t working at the time.
4. Having spent only 6 weeks in total in Jamaica over the last year. I am seeing Kingston with fresh eyes – the real estate developments, the roads…the good in what has changed, and is changing.
5. It always feels good to catch up with friends, family…hug them up, laugh with them and exchange stories about what has happened the past year, what’s going on with them now and what’s up for 2020.
6. My heart smiles at the green in the hills, the sun, being able to see the sea from Russell Heights.
7. Because I am looking forward to going to my favourite spots and checking out new places to eat.
8. I am going to indulge my desire to go to the beach to just relax, watch waves, eat fish and sleep.
9. That I am focused on what is going right and who and what feels good to me in this present moment while I am here.
10. I love my fresh eyes. It’s making me ask both the same and different questions. It’s also making me connect the dots a little differently.
11. It all reminds me that as I travelled to 3 continents. 7 cities this past year, being Jamaican opened doors for me. Not surprising, but it’s still good to acknowledge it and be grateful.
12. It reminds me of how much I have grown, how much I have created a fresh narrative around the years before I left on my radical sabbatical and how some of my needs and dreams have radically changed since.
13. It has answered a bunch of questions that I left with just over a yr ago. And just accepting that as we are all meant to – I am going to keep going and growing. Never shrink to fit, love up the discomfort and grow.
14. It reminds me that I was never alone, I had untapped abundance in the network of my friends. All I needed to do was open my damn mouth and say something. Closed mouths don’t get fed.
15. It’s been a great reminder that I am limitless, that we all are.
16. It’s always best to face, accept the people, places, and things that no longer serve you. Because you do change, if you allow yourself. And you must trust that there will always be other people, places and things that will be there to serve you, where you are now and where you are headed to. Never shrink. Allow yourself to expand.
17. My favourite quotes:
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.”
– Jennifer Lee
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”
-Gustav Flaubert
”Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.”
“To Travel is to Live” – Hans Christian Andersen
“Life is not meant to be lived in one place.”
18. …”the world will never benefit from what you could have achieved. So voice your ideas, don’t be afraid to fail, and certainly don’t be afraid to succeed.”
19. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein