Journal of Becoming: Entry #3—Don’t Bloom Where You Are Planted

Uprooting your life to fall in love with it again

It was my first year living in Bali, and I spent my 36^th birthday surrounded by a new “found family” and community I had quickly built for myself. As I gazed at my birthday candles, I realized I had nothing to wish for because I already had everything I wanted.

Years before that, while still working in Corporate America in Minneapolis I had made a vision board and had set it as my phone background for a time. There was one particular picture of a serene-looking woman meditating in lush surroundings that I remembered adding to that vision board, and one day I decided to go searching for it again so I could make it my phone background. This time when I found it, I clicked on the link below the picture out of curiosity, and it took me to a website for a yoga studio that I had been to in Ubud, Bali.

I had made my wish come true.

So, that year on my birthday I wished that everyone could have this feeling that I had in that moment—complete contentedness.

I was head over heels in love with my life for the nearly four years I lived in Indonesia (and that’s saying a lot, because that’s where I spent the plague years). I sometimes wonder if I will ever be that happy again. Sure, I have had good moments since then, but that’s the difference—moments. There, it was all good with the occasional bad. In the four years since then, it’s been mostly miserable with the occasional good.

I have seen people who have this great love of their life and, while I am genuinely happy for them, I believe this is the exception rather than the rule. I don’t believe everyone finds that one great love of a lifetime. But Indonesia was that for me.

I wonder if other people experience that love of a place the way others feel for a person. And is it a once in a lifetime thing? Or was that the great love of my first act and I will have another great love in the second act of my life? I always say, I have never felt for a partner what I felt for Paris (I wrote about this in last week’s newsletter, which you can read here if you missed it). French was my first love. Paris was love at first sight. But it was a summer fling compared to the deep and life changing, life affirming love that was Indonesia.

So, I believe it is possible to find love again (anyone who can claim the Golden Bachelor as their guilty pleasure show knows that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings—or someone breaks a hip), but not without a little bit of pain first.

When I look back on the times I have fallen out of love with life and remember how I fell back in love with it again, I discovered a pattern every time: I had to uproot myself.

I’m sure you’ve all familiar with the quote, “Bloom where you are planted,” which encourages people to make the most out of any situation they are in, embrace their current circumstances and find things to be grateful for even when they’re in the depths of despair.

Well, I’m calling bullshit on that.

Sorry, Saint Francis de Sales.

I don’t claim to be wiser than a saint, but one thing I have learned is this:

Just because you are rooted, doesn’t mean you have to stay that way.

It’s not always possible to bloom where you are planted. Sometimes the growing conditions aren’t optimal, sometimes they’re downright volatile—the soil is too acidic, there’s too much rain and not enough light, too much frost and not enough warmth. Or the pot is too small for growth; more space and air to breathe is needed.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to bloom where you are planted and make it work, you realize the garden has been overtaken by weeds and pests and you are surrounded. And maybe you’ve put your blood, sweat and tears into your growth, have tried every pesticide, have tried hard to reach towards the sun, but rot has set in and you’re tired of just trying to survive; you want to thrive again. There are so many factors that are beyond our control when trying to bloom in the wild. We are not living in greenhouses, where these factors can be controlled for optimized yields.

Also…

You’re not a damn tree!

Whether it’s a soul sucking job, a one-way friendship, a toxic romantic relationship, a major you don’t feel passionate about, a city that drains you, you are not rooted in it as deeply as you might think. If your discontent with life is due to any of these or other factors, you can—and must—uproot yourself.

It will hurt.

It will be scary.

You will feel like Atreyu trying to pull Artax out of the swamp of sadness.

But it will be worth it.

My situation before moving to Bali was pretty grim, to put it lightly. I was living in a city that brought out the worst in me and drowning in a relationship I felt I couldn’t escape. I was also trying to navigate a loss for which I had no frame of reference. It’s always darkest before the dawn, as they say, and damn was it dark.

But when I stopped beating myself up for not being able to make things work, stopped feeling guilty for not being able to find the silver lining or things I was grateful for and realized I could (and absolutely should) get the hell out of Dodge, I ripped out every root that had been attached to rotten, fetid soil and decided I was done trying to bloom where I had been planted.

At the time, all I knew about Indonesia was coffee, gamelan music, and orangutans. I had never even been to the Asian continent. I had no idea what to expect. I knew I would miss living in Latin America—speaking Spanish every day, the exuberant people, the vibrant culture. But I also knew I owed it to myself to leave for greener pastures—or rice fields, as it were.

And I fell in love with life again.

Nothing about me had changed in any inherent way. I simply removed myself from a place and a person and a situation that was not only inhibiting my growth but poisoning me. I remembered what it felt like to bask in light rather than wilt in darkness. By leaving, I came back to myself.

Not blooming where I was planted turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Living my best life and learning to ride a motorbike in Bali