Getting my life back

And now, who else am I ?

It’s been three years.
Three years of grieving my twenty years in a foreign country—
A country where, strangely enough, I felt less like a foreigner than I do here, back in the place where I grew up and spent the first two decades (and more) of my life.

I’ve always known I left as part of a survival strategy.
When asked, "Why did you move to Asia?" I would answer: "Providence!"
Easy one. Externally referenced.

For the past three years, I’ve had no answer to the question:
“Why did you come back?”

Now, I’m beginning to realise:
There was as much intelligence in leaving that system to seek another paradigm
as there is in coming back—
to get my life back. Internally referenced.

My life there has truly been great.
And then, the imperative of biological growth knocked at the door.
What’s next?
Here you are, on your healing journey, dear One.
The time is now—to move on, to evolve, to engage.
You are more than that.

So I followed the impulse to move forward,
Without even considering that I would face an immense, bottomless grieving process
Grieving decades of worry-free, tropical lifestyle.

Trying to get my life back means asking myself the question:
Who else am I, if—and when—I’m not the French girl in the kampung?

The one who lives far from her native country and built a good, contented, mysterious life. The one who escaped the system outside of herself, only to discover that the system inside is so deeply ingrained. The cultural conditioning—so prevalent. The one who read dozens of books denouncing that very conditioning. The one who forgets it all the time. The introvert.

Today. Now.
I want to get my life back.
I breathe to get my life back.
I breathe to create.

There are ways without boxes,
Boxes meant to contain me.
I am free—free to all possibilities.

How deep can I dive?
The truth of my experience is: I am willing to dive.
Yet as soon as I reach the threshold of my potential, I draw back.
Yes—fear it is.
Fear: that very spot where growth lives.

How many things have I started?
How many ideas left uncreated?
Dead in the womb of my fire—
Unattended, unexpressed… if not repressed.

My vessel is cracked.
It feels like it can’t hold my creative fire.

Three years—and I’m still looking for paid work.
Am I really looking?
No, I am not. Not really.

I know I need, I want to create.

Pain in my belly tells me I’m still holding on to old strategies.
Pain in my chest is shouting to speak my truth, to be witnessed, not silenced.

I feel the power
I feel the subtle
I feel the surge beneath the silence

Solar plexus on fire.
Let’s wisely burn this old pattern that no longer serves me.
Gratitude to the genius who put it there in the first place.
I’m grown up now.
And I feel safe.
Do I?

Breathe. Cry. Breathe. Feel dizzy. Breathe.
My life is unfolding into new possibilities
As I allow and engage with this very moment.

Let me embrace the chaos of I don’t know what’s next.

What I do know now is:
I NEED AND I WANT TO CREATE.
I need and I want to get my life back.
JOYfully.
And in every conscious breath,
I intend to reclaim who I am.
Embodied.