Countdown to Chasing Rainbows

“Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” —Louise Hay

There's a thought. Approval is a great theme to embrace as I step into this new chapter of life. I have decided in my 50th year to call it the "midlife reboot".....a time to step back, reevaluate values, and finally work on myself after putting everything else first for the first 50 years. It's time to finally focus on me.

Big change is looming in our house. As we are preparing for our big move to Maui, I am reminded that I am not as worldly as I originally thought I was. Hubs and I made a choice to forgo having a family of our own so we could travel the world. After traveling to Mexico with his family when we were dating, I was hooked and couldn't wait to do and see more in the world. I love seeing how people live, where they shop, and eat at their local places. We have made sure to travel internationally almost every year to see anything and everything. I would say we are open to visit just about anywhere, but I am a little bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to safety, so we have stuck to the countries that aren't in the midst of civil unrest. Otherwise, we have stepped foot into 62 countries thus far in 30 years of travel. For us to count a country as "visited" we need to at least touch dirt in that country. For example, just stopping in an airport or train station does not count as a visit; we actually have to get out and step on the earth for it to count. Admittedly, I haven't scoured all 62 of those countries, but I am proud of this accomplishment and can say I truly have learned about each place we have visited and have enjoyed interacting with people in each of those places. I am hoping to make it into the century club of over 100 countries visited someday.

Even though I consider myself pretty worldly when it comes to travel, I am feeling particularly vulnerable about packing up and leaving the only place I know to move to an island in the South Pacific. At face value, I feel silly as so many people are shocked to hear I am not as excited as they'd expect that I am going to "live the dream" in Maui, but I think my 50 years of living in Northern California have provided a safety net for me to come back from our travels. After a lot of reflection, I am beginning to accept that this move is necessary for me to finally focus on my well being, do the things I really want to do instead of what others expect of me, and develop the skills I have put off over the years. I am so lucky to have this opportunity to start a new life and I can design it however I want. I am not ignorant to think this just fell in my lap; hubs and I worked hard to be able to do this. It's just surreal that it is now here. I am having trouble realizing it is now time to chase rainbows and watch sunsets.

Two more weeks and we hop on that one way flight to Maui. We are strategizing what we are bringing in our checked bags and our carry-ons as we are bringing our little orange princess cat to Hawaii. I need to remember to pack bribery candy for the other folks on the plane as I am sure she will be quite vocal about her 5 hour trip in her cat carrier. The bags will contain mostly her bougie food dispenser and water fountain supplies, but I want to bring a few craft projects to work on before we return to CA to pack up the house and a few Christmas decorations to put up in the new house for the holidays. Maybe in Maui, I can start to get excited about the holidays again and learn some new crafts.




I like the quote above. I never was formally taught "think of others before thinking of yourself" and "nothing you do is good enough" but those are the lessons I learned from my childhood. Unfortunately, I never learned who I was, what I wanted out of life, and how to make me better in my own eyes. When I had an epiphany earlier this year about hubs needing to start retirement and make this move, I decided this would also be my time to start my midlife reboot. It's time to show me what I can do and who I am.




Cheers to a life chasing rainbows. Stay tuned for our new adventures across the pond.