How It All Started...

Love child aka Hailey

You know, it's kind of hard to pinpoint a specific time where the possibility of me up and leaving the "mainland" first started to grow. I guess perhaps if I was to go way back, it may have initially started when I left home for college with a long term boyfriend. We were best friends, grew up together actually (I'm talking pre-school here), and more or less lived together for the past four years. We definitely had fun, and even got a puppy together (our little love child as our friends called her).
But you know, the comfort of having someone so close to you, during the time of your life where you are supposed to "find yourself" isn't perhaps the best thing - which I have recently discovered. I never really had to go out on any limbs to make friends, I had him, I wasn't forced out of my comfort zone, and even though I technically lived in the dorms - if I remember correctly, and I do - I slept there a grand total of one night! Why would I? He had an apartment all to himself, and it happened to be awkward roommate-free!

... So anyway, it comes time for us to graduate, both of us completing college in three years, and we both have "real person jobs" as I like to call them (basically a job that requires a degree, 40 hours+ a week, benefits, blah blah you get the point) lined up. So here we are 21 and 22, out of school, careers ahead of us, our love child/puppy, and an apartment together for the fourth year in a row. I was very happy and proud for us, but as the 9-5 went on I became a little envious of my friends that were still in college, serving at restaurants, sleeping in, staying out late, etc, etc...

Anywho, summer rolls around and my cousin and I fly out to Hawaii to visit our relatives. I was in Hawaii for 2 weeks and I fell in love! For the first time, I wasn't ready to come home when it was time to leave, I wasn't home sick ... in fact, I didn't really miss home at all. Something about it here I just liked, loved! Hawaii made me calmer, more peaceful. A backdrop of mountains that end in crystal clear ocean, with palms trees, cool breezes, rainbows, sunsets, breathtaking hikes (not just because of the view - literally breathtaking if you've ever hiked Koko Head), the list goes on! I had two close friends in Hawaii as well, and they planted the seed for my idea to come back and live here.

What a scary thought!! Leave my boyfriend/bestfriend of 5+ years, move farther away from my family, quit the teaching job that I loved, and move halfway around the world! I can't do something like that... it doesn't follow society's timeline (aka graduate high school, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, retire, die - fun huh?) ... but that's exactly why I did it!

... One week after I returned from my Hawaiian vacation in June, I booked my one-way ticket. Probably the most difficult decision I ever made. And you know, I tried to talk myself out of it, even coming up with excuses for why I couldn't/shouldn't go. But something in the back of my head wouldn't let me stay, something told me I had to go, that I needed to experience life on my own, figure myself out a little, take a step back before I grew up too fast, got married, had kids, and then, realized I never had any adventures in life. So here I am, Hawaii, my Never, Neverland, where I came because I wasn't ready to grow up quite yet.

Honolulu, Hawaii