On a Day When The Wind Is Perfect | Sailing the World with Amy Thome | Inspiring Story #10

“Sailing The World … I have never felt a peace like I do when I’m in motion, when the wind is lashing my body, when the boat is heeling over on its side…”

"On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open & the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day." ~ Rumi

Never in my life have I felt at home living in a house, a solid, unmoving structure.  Most girls grow up desiring a beautiful house, a successful career perhaps, a husband, a white picket fence, a pet, and maybe those 2.5 children.  I have never desired any of those things, but somewhere along the way into adulthood, I curiously started following that construct, that path that everyone seems to think they have to take, which, personally, I view as a trap.

There Has To Be More To Life Than This ...
 

I owned a gorgeous 1922 English Tudor, which was a woman's complete dream, filled with antiques, a completely remodeled kitchen to easily enjoy preparing gourmet meals from scratch, a bourgeois white fluffy carpeted office, and a wood-burning fireplace lined with large bookshelves.  I had chandeliers, an arched front door, slate backsplashes, a white claw-footed antique office desk...

I always drove nice cars. I had a loving German Australian shepherd and even had a ten-year relationship at one time, as well as a very high-paying corporate finance job in management.  A job that let me take killer vacations to places like India and Brazil.

I attained a degree and a handful of financial licenses in the Wall Street world.  I had it all, from the looks of it.  But NONE of these things made me happy or at peace.  Something was always off, amiss … these things didn’t sustain me, feed me, or make me feel content, whatsoever.  There was always a nagging ache for more.  I felt chained by these THINGS.

I have been a seeker by nature for as long as I can remember, since childhood.  I questioned organized religion when I was 16.  I’ve always asked why.  I've always looked at society like something was askew.  I’ve always known there was far MORE to this life.  I didn’t want to follow that conveyor belt of uniformity, of lifestyles around me that all seemed to be fabricated from an eerily similar mold.

I Sold My House and Everything In It

It wasn’t until I finally grew the balls, after years of deliberating in my head, to take the plunge and say goodbye to it all.  I sold my house, including everything in it.  I quit my job and left my relationship.  Around 2012, it all began to shake, and in hindsight, in the most eloquent way.

I discovered the world of yoga and meditation, and it was all uphill from there. Well, maybe not uphill exactly, but yoga has a very interesting way of seeping into your every pore and making it so that there is no way BUT to start shedding.  It starts to make you have very little tolerance for those things in your life that no longer feed you.

You begin to simplify.  It can feel like the earth is actually crumbling beneath you, but, in fact, it’s causing you to become alive again, to begin to realize your true self, your true essence - the person who has been there all along but was buried beneath all the clutter from the conditioning that started back when you were a child.

Whether you like it or not, yoga and meditation show you the cage you’ve been living in, and you start the process of rattling those bars.  The lenses you used to view the world via are now being wiped clean: the debris of a lifetime of other people’s expectations, the norms society places on us, and the fears that our media and government have put into our psyche.

You truly begin to gain more clarity than you could ever have imagined.  It’s chilling but herein begins your glorious personal climb out of the playpen.  Would you rather have  a lifetime of robotic living or the newfound ability to chart your own way? 

Sailing The World

Four months ago, I finally let go of the career that I had been chasing for over eleven years.  I went into work one day, wrote a long email, and left an hour later without notice.  My soul could not take another day.  Since then, I have begun one of the most beautiful chapters of my life. I finally found a place I truly feel is ‘home’.  And that is on the water.

I just happened to start taking a curious interest in sailboats.

For no apparent reason whatsoever, I was being drawn to them.  Taking up sailing lessons has begun to show me that what is ‘home’ is so vastly different from person to person.

For me, I have never felt a peace like I do when I’m in motion, when the wind is lashing my body, when the boat is heeling over on its side.  It’s a rush I have never experienced before.  The water rocks me to sleep at night and welcomes me into her vast maternal benevolence again each day.  This is home; this is home.

I have no idea what is to come, but I don't regret a thing except wishing I had done it sooner.