The why is clear. It is comprised of a dream, a love story, and of possibility.
The results of the dream feel imminent, written in the stars. Placing one foot in front of the other slowly, asking the right questions, listening to my intuition, cross checking with my ration, having hard conversations with my man, and then having some more.
The how is unclear. I struggle with allowing the how to reveal itself. I feel relief when letting go of the dream in moments of uncertainty, if only so that I can sleep at night.
The love story is beautiful.
A call from a friend, a soul mate, someone I've danced with before in other lives and who I found again at twenty years old. From across the country he calls me, his friend is looking for someone to prepare food in his cafe, my friend has told him I am his person. I am 27, I have never prepared food beyond my own kitchen, I have not yet gone to nutrition school or cooked for a farmer's market, and so I tell him he is crazy.
He convinces me to take the job. I fly home from San Francisco to Block Island. I prepare a menu and cook on a 2 burner stove. I am happy, and creative, and the feedback is good. I am paid small money compared to waiting tables, but it matters little. I get to live in the sweet little boho apartment upstairs from the cafe, with the shop owners, a good friend, and a young girl who asks me questions about life while I cook. Her questions, giving me a sense of myself as grown and knowledgeable, and a vision of who I am becoming.
My friend, who got me the job, says he told me so. He introduces me to his buddy from high school. His friend is cute. He lives on a boat. He comes in daily for coffee in his galoshes and overalls, and loves my cous cous salad.
I learn at the end of that summer, the owners are selling the cafe. They offer me to purchase the business, though I have other dreams of going to school for nutrition. I decline the offer, and eventually learn, the new owners have other plans for the cafe and my job will no longer exist. I move out of the sweet apartment, move in with my cute new overall wearing boyfriend, and the following winter start school to become a health coach.
While attending school, among a myriad of other healthy shifts in my life, I decide that maybe I'd be open to marriage, children. When asked by a mentor how I feel my life is shifting, how I may be stepping out of the boxes I put myself in, I stand up and take the microphone. In front of 2000 of my peers, I simultaneously begin to shed fears of being seen, while expressing this realization about children and commitment. It was in no other words, a big life moment.
Two years later, with my 8 month old in tow, I visit a possible apartment for rent in town. Above the cafe, where we fell in love, we move in and start again. I meet with some of my first health coaching clients there, I start my blog, the apartment is different now--it has grown up as well, decorated beautifully, now baby proofed. The conversations from the cafe below remain the same, as they flow through the windows in the morning, you hear the daily cast of characters talking about island events, greeting each other groggily, sipping coffee, laughing. There is comfort in the sounds, as I wake early with my sleepless baby and recollect the life I new before.
Time passes. We move on again. A new apartment, further from town, more quiet, more space. My business grows. My cleanses are successful, I am asked again to push my edges and I begin to prepare cleanse food for the island participants. The food is loved. The food is love.
My man talks of Someday Cafe. And despite, that my cooking out of our home drives him crazy, despite his gripe with the dishes and every inch of our cabinets being stocked with dried goods and bottles of lemon juice, every time he mentions the Someday Cafe, I melt. This is how I know he supports me, this is how I feel his belief in me. Our dreams are shared, and I feel his love.
The dream is imminent.
Nine years later. We've moved again, into a bigger space, to hold our growing family. We bring the baby home to this new house, with boxes left unpacked, beds still needing to be made. I am gifted a different birth experience this time. The baby comes home and she's calm, she sleeps. My son adjusts, and there is so much ease inside of the experience I find myself waiting, just waiting for it to be hard. I start working again, within weeks. I am amazed at my ability. It all feels so comfortable and complete.
I receive the call. The cafe, the same cafe. I have a new baby. I say no, I question how I could possibly. I go to bed, my eyes clamped shut I pray for sleep. I am not sound, but rather living out the possibilities. I dream. I wake. I let it go, I release it. Like really release it, in my bones.
Another call, this time knocking louder, this time waking me to greater possibility.
And I simmer. There is so much unknown. I don't know where the financing will come from, I don't know if my man in overalls will give me his yes, I don't know what running a cafe with two kids will look like. Understanding, that to make this happen, I will need to dip into the deep discomfort of making myself and my dreams vulnerable to people, as I figure all of it out.
Time feels of the essence, and simultaneously like it's waiting for me. The how, unknown, and yet no real fear, just comfort. The comfort you get when you feel in your bones, despite the unfamiliar path, you know exactly where you're headed.
The dream is imminent.