I journeyed to the Dominican Republic 71 days ago but I couldn’t bring myself to parse together any words until now. I’ve held the words, memories and reflections I had from the seven days I spent in Punta Cana inside me like they belonged in a coffin, waiting lonely and inaccessible from the outside world.

Some trips change you. Some trips are more than a period of time spent taking beautiful snapshots to share with friends and strangers on social media. Some trips are more than a series of things to do and places to go and things to eat and experiences to be had. Some trips remain etched on your heart and leave footprints on your spirit long after you’ve departed. The week I spent in the Dominican Republic was one of those trips.

When I stepped foot outside of the airport and the sound of one of my favorite languages danced near my ears, I was hot. Really hot. I shed a couple layers of clothing as small beads of perspiration began to form on the small of my back. I twitched and scratched the nape of my neck. I shifted my weight nervously from one foot to the other. One foot to the other. One foot to the other.

But then I exhaled and breathed in the sweetness of the breeze. I smelled the ocean and trees although I couldn’t see them. I felt their presence through the smell. I exhaled and the heaviness from a draining Thanksgiving lifted away from my body. My eyesight sharpened. I laughed to myself. I thought about how you often don’t realize how long you’ve been holding your breath, bracing for the next blow, waiting for the next thing to come tumbling down, until you steady yourself and exhale.

Until you decide to pause and let go.

I floated through most of the week I spent surrounded by influencers, photographers and fellow writers mostly pondering my worthiness. Through each experience, through each thing offered to me, through each meal, through each interaction, through each excursion, through each check-in at a luxury resort I wondered why I was there. I smiled on cue, I laughed when it was apropos all while mentally churning these thoughts, all while I wondered if I deserved any of what I was receiving. I was just an ordinary writer penning ordinary stories and doing ordinary works. I didn’t have thousands of followers like many of the others. I wasn’t a much sought after social media personality. I was always and have always been a writer concerned with honoring my heart first and foremost and telling the stories which felt most genuine.

And those questions still stick with me months later as I navigate through yet another transitional season of my life where all familiarity is being stripped from me bit by bit. As the things which I once held near and dear fall away in a gentle fashion and I’m left to only contemplate the void they leave behind. Do I deserve any of this? Do I truly matter? Does living my life the way I see fit, veering the very opposite of a life of conformity, truly have any merit? Am I just a crazed person for thinking I have it, in even some small inkling of way, all figured out?

I pondered my worth as I floated in the pristine, almost crystal clear waters of Saona Island. Myself and the others in our group unloaded off our private yacht to have Cuba Libres (rum + coke) poured for us on demand as we splished and splashed, marveling at the beauty of the moment we were present in. Starfishes floated at the bottom of the sea floor and while there was excited talking and chatting, I took the moment to float on my back in the water, my leopard print one-piece bathing suit acting as a marker since my voice had disappeared from the chorus of chatting. There was a stillness I felt as I floated, my ears taking in the soft whooshing of the water and the soft lull of the waves moving my body back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

I mused as I chomped on lobster a half an hour later and sipped on white wine after spending a short time wading in the water and participating in photo opps. I reflected as I fumbled in my tote bag for money to buy a fresh coconut to drink coconut water from. I silently prayed I wouldn’t be forgotten, that I wouldn’t forget myself my needs or desires, wishes and wants, my highs and lows, my heart and my spirit, as I stumbled to get back on the boat to take us back to the resort at the end of the day, my skin a bronzer tone than it had been before the day had begun.

I continued to reflect and muse and internally ponder as the rest of my time there progressed. As I spent free afternoons wading in beach waters. As I ate food prepared by an amazing chef in a private villa. As I partied at Coco Bongo on a Saturday night and drank far too much rum. As I peered at the beauty of the Dominican Republic from a bird’s eye view up in a hot air balloon, lamenting how my ankles and calves and toes had been attacked by mosquitos of the morning dew of grass in the wee hours in the morning, after sunrise painted the sky in hues of azure, pink and violet.

Certainty is a treasured idea and notion but often in life, we don’t have it. We wade through the waters, seas and tributaries, lakes and streams, baby ponds and vast rivers, wishing we had it in each moment because it would make rising with the tide, and not fighting the tide as it rises, touching the shore more and more ferociously as the moon orchestrates all motion, a helluva lot easier. It would make our steps more measured, steadier, more sure, stronger, more dauntless.

But in thinking back to the seven days I spent in the Dominican Republic, communing with the water, willing to be healed in the nourishing way that water often can, there’s a truth I can have and hold until whatever comes next. Until whatever clarity I need shows up. Until the shores of it reaches my feet and takes a bit of stand gripping at my toes with it.

 

And that truth is shrouded in being present. Fighting the temptation to rush ahead ten thousands steps because being sure would feel more comfortable than being perpetually unsure and having to collapse into the current of uncertainties and I don’t knows.

A wise person knows to be human is to not know. To hang along the edge of simply weathering the plane of many questions, of wearing a jacket clad with questions marks willing to be answered but instead, coaxing the answers that are unknown to just be. To exist in their own space. To level out into something which is undiscoverable and unanswerable. And to be okay. To be okay with not knowing and to find the grace to live within despite.

To live knowing all will be okay. To live. To live knowing all will be okay.

This trip and experiences from the trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic were made possible and sponsored by the Dominican Republic Ministry of Tourism.