Here, there, everywhere.
“Stress is about being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there.’” (Eckart Tolle)
Today I can say, with absolute certainty, that he was right.
When I left South Africa, I didn’t want to be there anymore. Ireland became my here, and for four glorious years, I felt at home. But my here also meant sharing a space with a man I was married to on paper- paper that wasn’t worth the ink it was written on. He was Vapour Man, lost in his clouds of vaping and toxic behaviour.
So I left.
Back to South Africa, where I waited for my visa and Green Card. Two long years. Two years of feeling trapped again, suspended between the life I had and the life I wanted.
My here drained me - body, mind, and soul. My there was America. And when I finally arrived, I was exhausted.
This morning, I sat in a dermatologist’s office in Texas, the place that is now my here. For seven years, I’ve had a spot under my collarbone - one that never healed. Itched. Bled. Hurt. A doctor in Ireland once glanced at it and said, in her thick Polish accent, “Sun damage!” but offered no solution.
Today, the dermatologist took one look and said what I already knew but didn’t want to hear: skin cancer. Then he quickly reassured me - it was the best kind of skin cancer to have. Treatable. Not life-threatening. A biopsy, a treatment plan, and a few more trips back and forth. Not what I was hoping for, but here we are.
As I sit with this news, I find myself reflecting on all that has led me here.
The past decade has been a long and arduous journey. Ireland healed parts of me, even as it broke others. It gave me space to grieve the reality of my children scattered across four continents. It held me as I mourned my anam cara. Then, just four months into my new life in America, my sister - my last remaining family member - passed away.
From a family of six, I am the only one still standing. And nothing could have prepared me for the depth of that loneliness - the quiet ache of knowing there’s no one left who remembers me from the very beginning.
But such is life.
Today, despite everything, I know I’m on the right path. I am learning, slowly, to put myself first. It will be a long road back to myself - but not to the self I once was. That version of me is gone, shaped and reshaped by every experience, every loss, every lesson.
So today, I choose to celebrate life. I am here. No more longing for a there. This is it.
And if I care enough - if I love myself enough, if I pour into myself as deeply as I have poured into others - then I know my soul will dance again. My heart craves roots, my mind longs for wings. It’s time to give myself both.
“Wherever you are, whatever you do - be in love.” (Rumi)