The Good, The Bad, The not so Ugly....

Where to start.... where shall I begin? How about the here and now! Actually, let me thank Brad first for calling me early this morning and saying," Where's the blog bitch!!! I waited up til after midnight to see if you would post something. I like reading it!" I was flattered, and still am that anyone reads and enjoys my mental vomit! ha ha. So again, thank all of you!

At this moment, I am sitting outside our quaint little guest house near the world famous Playa Jobos. A small seaside village just outside the town of Isabela, Playa Jobos is a surf mecca and has been for well over 30 years. It is often a stop on the pro tour, and many people come to this island to enjoy it's break, which can be treacherous one minute and glassy the next. It's balmy, but I can hear our air conditioner cooling the room. Alwin and Sam are already in bed. It's only 9pm. We just got done with a great dinner of salad and soup and I just took the first hot shower I've had in weeks! It was like a little slice of heaven. We are spending the weekend on the West coast of the island and will be traveling around the area for the next two days eventually making our way back to the rain forest. It is quiet here except for the occasional loud car speeding down the road bumping reggaeton, the local flavor of hip hop. I'm relaxed and feeling fine. Tonight is the good.

Yesterday was a different story. As most of you know, the whole reason I have come here for an extended stay is to help Lucy and the children at Casa Suiza. I found out yesterday that I may have to put that dream on hold.

Alwin had spent the day revamping the website we were creating, while I took Sam to the doctor for his physical therapy. Sam and I spent a few hours at the beach to give Alwin some peace and quiet. The two of them have been backpacking together for over 6 months now, and a day apart is much needed at times. I was anxious to finish the preliminary work I had started for the project, so we headed back to the house before sunset. Alwin was completely stoked about the website. He had spent all day revamping the functionalities and it was looking great. I had already contacted some possible donors with a lot of resources that were willing to help. People were contacting me out of the woodwork and willing to open their wallets for the children. Things were going great.

After a few edits of a donor letter, I called Lucy to come see all of the hard work we had done. This is where the onion started to really peel. I won't get into the details, but layer after layer after layer of information later, and we were utterly handcuffed. Partly because of legal semantics, partly because of Lucy's inability to think outside the box. I had been mislead on the details of the operation and every problem I addressed or found a solution for had another underlying problem that would have to be fixed first. (Thanks for the call Aunt Pauline! Perfect timing!) I felt completely exasperated, emotionally drained, heartbroken, done. I had dreamed of this long term sustainability project that would be great for the children, Lucy and the forest. It would ween them off of government reliance. It would allow her to enjoy the rest of her life with far less financial woes. It would have possibly given me a long term home down here and the ability to help her year round. So far.... Nada. I'm not completely without hope however. She did agree to go sit with a lawyer and discuss options.

The opportunity is absolutely gigantic if she is willing to do some initial work and make an investment. Getting her to see that when she is busy raising 7 children full time may be next to impossible. Leading the horse to water would be hard enough, getting it to drink may be a battle nobody could win. Needless to say I had a very sleepless night. This was the bad.

"Nothing is good or bad, less our thoughts make it so" -- not sure who to quote, but this very famous and true message popped in my head this morning. I immediately began working hard to change my state of mind. I thought about how lucky I was to be alive, to be relatively healthy, and relatively young. I thought about all of the challenges I had overcome in my life, many that were much much harder to deal with than this. I thought of all of my friends and family and all of the people that love me. I thought of how awesome it was to be on this island and of all the people I have shared and will be sharing it with! Instantly I felt better and felt like I had the world on a string again! I breathed deeply and with a sense of purpose decided to shift my goals. Have fun! Enjoy! Write! Create! And work on my physical state!

Didn't I open a book and start instantly reading about food chemistry. Divine Karma in instant action. Turns out most of what I've thought is wrong... well some of it, and I shared the information with Sam and Alwin and we all instantly decided to treat our bodies to the best things for them! It was exciting! So much so that we decided I would join them tomorrow and shave my head.... as a sort of "rite of passage" for our new found attitudes towards our bodies. Look out world, another bowling ball joins the ranks of Brad Zacek! Since I quit my full time job, I have been much more aware of my health and exercising much more often, so this was like a Godsend of information at just the right time. I will share it with any of you if you are interested, and I'm sure I will be writing about how I feel and any changes that are going on both good and bad. I'm really excited. The not so Ugly... time to do what one wants and a strong lesson learned. Hey... what's a little more character to my personality going to hurt??? Nothing at all!

I pray that you are well, happy, feeling good and alive no matter what your challenges! Pick your head up, smile and carry on!

Much Love! J.