A changing vision

Every year I make a vision board for the year ahead with images and words that help remind me of goals that I have for the year ahead. I have been doing this for years. Most of the goals I have put on my boards have been realised: owning a flower farm; becoming a better floral designer; getting my Canadian citizenship; staying fit and healthy; travel around the world; making new friendships, and being of service to my community. This year’s vision board I made back in Canada, and the goals were clear: I wanted to move back to the island of my heart of hearts, pursue my crazy dream of finishing my novel and getting it published, and save to some day buy myself an old stone house up in the mountains where the breeze never ceases to blow, I can hear birds singing when I wake in the morning, and it is dark enough that I can see the stars from the rooftop at night. It was a crazy dream—it still is. It meant uprooting the life I worked very hard to build on Prince Edward Island in Canada, pack up 19 years of hard work, ship my belongings around the world, sell my car and even find a new home for my beloved cat who I still miss every single day. I flew out to Cyprus in May to find something to rent and submit an application for a year-long visitor’s visa to immigration (a visa which I am still waiting for). I found what felt like a spot that could be home for at least a few years—an old house in the heart of the city that was noisier and a little more central than I would have liked, but had lots of light, and a garden, and wood floors in the bedroom and living room. I flew back to Canada in June to pack with the faith that the visa I had applied for would eventually be granted. After a whirlwind of packing, sorting and cleaning, farewell parties with beloved friends who I love dearly, I flew back to Cyprus to begin my new chapter on July 1^st.

I brought my vision board with me and set it up in my kitchen so I could look at it daily and remind myself what I was working towards.

There is one image that has been on my vision board for years and has only been realized for brief periods of time—the image representing love. Sometimes the love image was a heart. Sometimes it was a couple—I always struggled with this image, because I have never found one that really seemed to capture what my heart was looking for. This year I had two images that were meant to reflect my hope that I may cross paths with love: the first was an image of a man who looked to be about my age sitting on a couch. I stuck it on there because it was the only image I could find in the magazines that I had at the time that looked like someone who was even remotely relatable to me, but the image never felt quite right. The other image I liked more, but it was tiny. It was a couple in the process of repainting the inside of a house together—their faces and hands smudged with paint, their faces joyful. I liked this one because I have always dreamed of fixing up a house with a partner—the act of collectively creating and transforming a space with someone I love has always inspired me.

Over the last two months I have navigated through the many ups and downs of dealing with trying to get settled in a new place. Setting up a bank account; buying a car; dealing with many non-functioning pipes and a toilet that I still often have to flush by pouring a bucket of water down it despite all efforts to make it work properly. I went to great lengths to get a mailbox, attach it to the front fence, and put my street and apartment number on it so that I had somewhere to receive my mail only to discover that the mailman prefers to leave the mail on the stairs in the stairwell. I got the ant population residing in every crack and emerging en-masse every time I attempt to prepare food under control. I still have no furniture other than a mattress on the bedroom floor that I am sleeping on, but my shipping company has told me that my ship is due to arrive next Tuesday, so with any luck furniture will be coming. I’m not sure, but I think it will feel good to have familiar items around me again. I guess I will find out soon.

In addition to dealing with my house, I’ve made a number of new friends and reconnected with old friends. One of the things I was hoping for in moving was the opportunity to meet people who challenge me in new ways so that I feel like I’m continuing to grow and hopefully become a better human. Over the last few weeks, I have had many new experiences in relationship that have brought me tremendous joy. Lots of laughter and shared quality time in nature. Lots of intense and beautiful conversations. Quite a number of conversations that made me uncomfortable—ultimately in positive ways, I think, and that pushed me to see things from a different perspective…to GROW. One thing that my experiences and conversations have made me reflect on more deeply is love; what it looks like, how it feels, and how it can often look and feel very differently than we expect it will.

In the last couple of days I’ve experienced moments in new relationship that have made me feel exceptionally vulnerable and tender, and have acted from a place of fear rather than grace; a place of exhaustion from still feeling so unsettled in my house; and likely out of a place of insecurity in all the unknowns that come with giving up a life on one side of the planet and having just barely started to build a new one. With all my closest friends who I might normally talk to about these things with on the other side of the planet, I have to process most things these days on my own. Another part of moving to a new place that I had not considered—with video chat I assumed connecting regularly would be easier, but I forgot the 6-10 hour time difference between me and my loved ones back in North America.

I spent today at home being quiet. I read an entire book cover to cover. I wrote. I meditated. I said prayers. I did laundry. I napped. My body was exhausted. This evening after a cold shower I wandered into the living room and noticed my vision board leaning against the wall. I knelt down in front of it and studied it – I needed a reminder of why in God’s name I moved heaven and earth to move all the way across the world today. As I was studying my vision board, I noticed that most of it still resonated—the writing, the home, the building of a new chapter of my life…but when my eyes landed on the images that represented love, I felt a strong sense that they needed to go, so I tore both of them off and threw them away. The space where they once were is now open, waiting for something. I don’t know what, but taking the images that were no longer resonating off felt like I had lifted a weight from my chest. There is something exciting about opening up space—you know that something will come to fill it, even if you have no idea what it will be. Removing the images that didn’t feel right felt like I was symbolically inviting possibility in.

Do you make vision boards? Do you rip things off as your perspective changes? I usually just make a whole new vision board when I notice there are things not resonating any more. But with no accessible art materials, I realised today that sometimes a whole new vision isn’t necessary. Sometimes you just need to let something go and then trust that the right thing will come to fill the space that has opened up.