Blast from a Hipsy’s Past…

Well it’s Wednesday again and I’m sitting in the “Shut up and Write” weekly meet up in my hotel room in Dallas wondering what the hell should I write about.

Spring break is in full swing and my kids wanted to visit their Dad, so I figured I would get my visit to the Dallas office out of the way. I love our Dallas office and every time I come here I am always in awe over how far I have come in life. I never would have imagined that this business world I am in would be something I could attain.

I was just a girl thrown into a world I knew nothing about. When I left the cult I grew up in at 21, I had never had a job, never lived alone, never went to a traditional school, and never had my own “money”.

I had lived in this cult community, secluded from the world not even realizing the vast amount of difference between me and someone else my age. The most independent thing I had done up until that point was travel to India.

My boyfriend at the time had decided that where we were living in the Middle East was too much for him and he wanted to go back to the States. Since I had a foreign passport, getting to the States was a bit more complicated so we decided India was where we would go.

I had just turned 18 and had never traveled anywhere without my Mother so this was my first break to freedom. The cult that we were in had different communities all over the world and once we were accepted into one of them in India, we bought our plane tickets. I’m not even sure what were thinking or if we had a plan but we wanted to be together and so we made it happen.

When we landed in New Delhi, it was as if we stepped into a totally different world. I had been all over Asia and had been living in the Middle East for over 3 years, and yet India felt like a different planet.

There was so much dust and people everywhere. The streets were busy and the cows were everywhere. There was so much color and the statues of gods everywhere left you wondering how anyone kept track of who they were and what each one did. We didn’t stay in New Delhi long and within 2 months we were on a train to Mumbai .

I pretty much grew up on trains, as we took visa trips from Thailand to Malaysia every 2-3 months when I was growing up, but nothing would have prepared me for the train that we went on in Mumbai. There were so many people on the train and with no air conditioning. We had to sleep on these single bunkbeds with our suitcases so they wouldn’t get stolen and the squat toilet was a hole that as you did you business you could see the train tracks going by. It was an unforgettable experience.

We got to Mumbai and stayed at one of the cult communities and helped out, while we figured out what our next move would be. Mumbai was like New Delhi but worse with way more people, dust and cows. After 2 months of sleeping on the floor of an apartment, we decided to give Bangalore a shot.

The bus to Bangalore thankfully had air conditioning and we were able to put our bags under without worrying about them getting stolen. We stopped at some pretty remote spots and as always there was so much dust, and the cows were living their best lives.

This family graciously let us stay in one of their bedrooms while we asked the different communities in the area if we could possibly move in and join the community. Most of them were full and the one that we were hopeful to get into was waiting for someone else to make a decision if they were leaving. The family we were staying with didn’t want us stay long, so we had to figure out what we were going to do and fast. Little did I know that my life was about to drastically change as my little Bean had already started growing inside me.

Looking back on life, I’m grateful we didn’t find a place to stay in India because having a baby in that world would not be something I would have wanted. After 2 months of living in the family’s bedroom and being rejected by every community in Bangalore, we bought plane tickets to the Philippines, and decided this was where we would start our new life.

6 months of traveling all over India is something that I will never forget and would probably never do again. It was an experience like no other and I’m glad I did it. It gave me a different understanding and perspective that I would have never acquired without being there experiencing it all. It made me see the world so differently and gave me a deeper appreciation for life.

Reflecting on how far I’ve come from the girl in India to the woman I am now, I can’t help be in awe at the inner strength that continues to come from my soul. How far I’ve come. How much I’ve experienced and how lucky I am to call this my life.

Perhaps this reflection is a reminder to myself to never forget to be that girl so dedicated to a vision of her life that a plane ride to India wasn’t terrifying but exciting. The girl who believed that a train ride through Mumbai was an adventure and a bus ride to Bangalore was her future.

Maybe if I brought the spirit of “that girl” back into my life, these new business adventures I’m about to embark on won’t be so terrifying and a lot more exciting.

Only time will tell….

Until next Wednesday….

A.A.