Lessons from Belize

I never thought I’d be one of those unfortunate people relegated to travelling during (one of) the most expensive and busiest times of year…yet I still found myself in a two hour backed up - and frankly, chaotic - immigration line while I watched the minutes tick past the time of our now missed connecting flight. March Break 2024. I am one of those unfortunate people now.

I’m also a seasoned pro (a point of pride that I’m not even going to try to downplay) when it comes to unfortunate travel incidents which I’ve learned to handle in stride. Unsurprisingly, the excessively long travel day had nothing on the fresh fish taco my starving stomach wolfed down while soaking in the blue waters and steamy humidity after finally reaching the long awaited destination.

Five too short days in Belize reminded me of five important lessons. Lessons which have revealed themselves to me before while away, but have too quickly been forgotten upon returning home. This time, by writing them here, I’m promoting them from inconvenient truth to intentional life adjustment. Check back with me in 6 months to see how I’m doing.

1. Life goes on - I’m in the habit of using social media as a way to keep up on the latest happenings (usually absurdities) in Canada. I can recognize that the importance I’ve placed on staying attuned to general high level developments has kept me more dependent than I’d like on consuming bite sized chunks of updates on Instagram.

But on vacation…I’m just soaking in the beauty of my life. Blissfully present. 

It felt liberating to give less attention to things like the latest laughable speech from Canada’s most loathed Liberal leader or yet another montage of fake clouds pieced together to illustrate how poisoned our skies are. The reality is: most of what happens in government has little impact on my day-to-day, and if I had to choose between being distracted and disconnected, or under informed but more present in my life…the answer is clear and obvious. 

I’ve realized being an engaged citizen doesn’t require one to be on top of everything. And by trying to accomplish this, I’ve allowed myself to fall in to the very trap I’m trying to escape: allowing the government to distract me at the expense of channeling more of my energy in to the places I can create real and life-changing impact. (Read the P.S. at the end for more on this realization).

There’s very little that truly interests me on social media and even less that actually has any real bearing on my life. So, like any habit, this too can be broken and scaled back. 

Which brings me to lesson two.

2. YOLO, right?! - I can’t recall the last time I’ve travelled anywhere for less than 10 days. A seven day vacation (effectively 5 after two 13 hour travel days) needed to be extra intentional. I actively wanted to make the most of my time because I knew it was limited. 

But our time is always limited. The only difference is there’s a known expiry date for vacation. So what if every day was lived as if we didn’t have a guarantee of more time tomorrow? You only live once. Cliche, I know, but it’s a mindset I don’t take advantage of nearly enough. One I want to apply more often instead of squandering away my desires on the false premise of tomorrow.

3. Oh the sweet sensation of sun and warmth - I can’t ignore the immediate difference I felt in my body being exposed to sun, fresh salty air and humidity. And I can’t ignore the accessible ease of consuming fresh fruit and juices every day. 

On top of that, I was battling the lingering symptoms of sickness before I left which all but immediately disappeared upon a few hours in the tropics. And how nice not to shiver!

It’s been a long time dream of mine to spend extended months away and I’ve come back with a new found understanding of why this is so imperative for me. 

4. Care for my body - There was a time when I couldn't wait to get a good burn so it would fade to a tan faster than it’d take for me to build up a base naturally. Call me vain, it’s fine. 

I had the best of intentions to protect my skin, and took care to do so. But I’m either an amateur sunscreen applier or used expired natural sunscreen - maybe both - and still got a terrible burn. Oops.

But this time around, I wasn’t proud of my corner cutting. I didn’t relish in sucking up the pain. I was openly remorseful and apologetic to my body for putting it in a position where it needed to direct attention to healing. It was an interesting observation to witness my shift in values and respect for my body.

5. There is no number five - I thought there was, but there isn’t. So take this as your reminder (or permission if you need it) that you get to make the rules in your life. You get to change your mind and take back previous statements when new information comes to light. You get to evolve. 

6. Ask for what you want - Okay in re-reading this and searching for a photo to include I was reminded of the fifth (now sixth) lesson: I spent three days gazing up at the palm trees wondering how to get my hands on one of the fresh coconuts hanging out below the leaves. Until S, in his unabashedly friendly nature, made friends with a local gardener and asked.

Thinking we’d be given instructions on perhaps how to climb a palm tree, we were instead told “give me 10 minutes”. He disappeared and, 10 minutes later, came back with not one but TWO fresh coconuts. And a machete to chop them open. Who knew asking could make getting what you want so easy?

Thanks for reading (and until the next adventure!),

Kate

P.S. I put down the first layers of this painting when I recognized that I was losing ownership in my life by participating in dynamics I didn’t even want to be in. In that moment I realized I had a choice: I could keep blaming everything I saw wrong on the people implementing the problems OR I could free myself. I could pick a new path. Develop my own solutions. Create more self trust. Leave the circus behind.

Free Yourself or Lose Yourself - 36x36