India Strong

Me at sunset in Tiruchendur (on the Bay of Bengal) with a perfectly timed gust of wind

It's been almost exactly a year since I went to India. I haven't written much about my experience because it's a pretty impossible thing to do.

How do you put into words all those happy faces, the welcoming souls, the beautiful colors, the noise, the crowds, the mazes that are streets, those speeding cars, buses, auto-rickshaws, bicycles. It's not a place that you can stand still. And She's not a place that stands still.

Moment by moment She is changing, shifting, realigning. It's a dance like nothing else I've ever seen or experienced.

When I left for India, I wasn't well. I'd just had my worst bout of vertigo that I'll ever have - spending a week in bed unable to set the world straight. My goal, my determination, was that I would make it onto that plane and get to India. The one thing I knew was that I was going.

Even as I dragged my suitcase through the airport, the world moved around me. And I experienced it as a bobble head. My journey through India was moment by moment; one foot in front of the other. Take in only what you can handle; nothing more, nothing less. It was a limited view of the world, but sometimes you have to build walls around you just to get by. And sometimes those views help you understand things in ways you hadn't before.

All these fears came up. You know the kind. The ones that stop you from doing what you really want to do. The ones that keep holding you back. The ones that don't let you speak up, reach out, move along when you really want too.

I learned to block out what wasn't necessary for me to take in or respond to. I let things move through me. I learned to decipher other people's fears from my own. I learned to fully stand on my own two feet. I saw how the negative thoughts make us feel weak when we are truly strong. I learned that I was stronger than I ever imagined. India Strong.

I am way stronger then I ever thought I was. I learned that all those things I've been afraid of don't matter, aren't real, or that I can handle them.

And She didn't mind - She works on you however you come - raveling and unraveling you every day and then again each night. I was part of her dance.

By the end of the trip, I was worn down and ready to go. But since the moment I walked into my door, I've had a deep longing to be back. I want to go back to see what I missed. To see what has changed. I want to go back because I have changed.

I don't know when, I don't know how, but I know I will return. 

She lives inside you and She calls you back.

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