I’ve been out here 3 weeks now and it has been gob-smacking. In the way you’d expect yes, but far more in unexpected ways. Every day I have to let go of control and the desire to control my life more and more.

My laptop, my tool of trade, died in the first week. I lost a wonderful client because the delay was too uncertain and too long, understandably. And along with that, the $2000 I would have earned out here and used to start a new life when I come back home in 3 months. That was my fantastic unstoppable plan! But now I have no plan. Some of you may not know this but I used the few hundred dollars I had left in the world, in an emergency situation of having to leave Colorado ASAP, to get a return ticket to this place (really at the time, any place would do) with $200 spending money to spare. Real shoe-string stuff here. Horrifically I spent a lot of that in Costa Rica in one day traveling overnight and all day to Nicaragua. A flipping expensive country, despite eating a few small things from a grocery store. I was hoping $200 would cover my expenses in Nicaragua for 3 months since it is the second poorest country and all, which would have been fine but I don’t have much left.

The issue of my laptop dying erupted a string of very painful feelings in me. I lost my ability to work, to be useful, pay my way in the world… I wondered, what am I worth if I’m not contributing in the way I believe I’m designed to be of specialised value to others? I lost the feeling of believing I can always take care of myself, land on my feet, pay for emergency things, even pay to have the parts shipped out here to fix it. I lost my cave, the computer screen is the place I retreat to for some space, privacy, safety, familiarity, connection with family. This compulsion would come out especially when there were a lot of people around.

For 2 days I walked around miserable, stunned, bewildered, frightened. I cried a lot. I missed my ex unbearably more than ever. Those 2 days a massive storm also cut out connection to the Internet after the cable got waterlogged, and my ability to even email my mom with my phone, someone. Anyone! I felt marooned, lost. Even surrounded by amazing people I felt lonely, homesick. That triggered a big one for me too because I don’t even know where home is. I felt like my life was a total disaster. I felt like a joke.

It’s been an eye-opening and humbling experience. I realised how much of my identity is wrapped up in this false shell of my trade. And it’s not even close to who I really am. It’s all ego. Bullshit. I’m incredibly valuable to the ones who know and love me without having to do or prove a thing.

I have enough. I’ll always have enough. I will always somehow have a simple, healthy meal in my belly and a place to sleep. I know this because it has always been the case. If I stopped believing this I would likely end up on the streets. It’s just how it works. I believe the universe has always taken care of me. I’ve lost the loves and homes I knew 3 times now and have always come out just fine. It’s in all of us to believe and receive this peace.

I’ve also had to let go of being clean. Another big one for me. Let go of being picky, selective. It’s 90{a9f0d31f6175b3e4775e11a66c07db268fb74408d6095f6b46eeec420c0e9f62} humidity and 100 degrees all day and night here. It rains on and off constantly, splashing everything with mud since we have roofs but no walls, moulding my belongings, springing forth showers of sandflies from the earth when it stops that feast on me in the thousands. Its itchier than anything you have ever known. In the madness of my sleep I have scratched huge chunks of skin off using the scratchy mosquito net. I’m surrounded by mud. I dry myself off from the shower standing in mud. I’m covered in sweat. Even the computers sweat. But this sweat is the sweat of undeniable purging, releasing toxins. It’s GOOD! It forces you to purge.

You can’t hold onto anything out here. Not your belongings, the idea that anything belongs to you, you can’t hold onto your toxins, your vanity, haha, paying your bills back home on time. You can’t hold onto your life back home in any shape or form. You can’t hold onto your ex either even if you wanted to.

It’s all good, so good for the soul, to just let it all go. Hang out. Be free! Give in to what life wants to do with you, let it show you what it’s been trying to for years now. Even though it had to beat it out of me I’m so glad it did! I needed this wake up from the trance, this dance with mundaneness, with pleasing others so they would hopefully stay or still want me around, with sacrificing my real interests and crazy passions to make things happy and comfortable for my partners for years now. I’m not accountable for anyone but myself now. Finally.

In sacrificing everything I held onto for years, the things I used to believe made me who I am today, I am finally finding me. She’s not who I expected to meet.

I may have $35 left in the whole world, but I feel like the richest, most well looked after and luckiest woman in the world. I have everything I need to nourish my body and soul. I wake up in the dark and dance in a sleepy trance while the sun rises over the lake and volcano in front of my eyes. I sleep in a hammock and wake up to the sounds of monkeys. I walk through thick jungle to a lake and swim with nibbling fish and a volcano. I value chocolate, onions and DEET like gold. There are shirtless lithe and gorgeous exotic men with insane washboard stomachs from heavy labour riding round on bicycles everywhere, circling me, and it’s even become annoying. Mud takes away the itchiness of insect bites. I drink tons of water and sweat out all the crap from months of not taking care of myself. The garden here is bursting with all the food I could ever need to eat. I’m surrounded by incredible, beautiful people who are all here to learn, live and love fully. Who I learn from every day, what love is, what trust is, true friendship. All over again.

Middle America is magical like that. You too can spend the pittance you have left in the world to go some place you feel you don’t belong. Then find out what happens next. Let go of your plans, desired outcomes and when you’re coming back. How youre going to pay for it. Let it burst open your heart — even violently if you resist — your eyes and senses to all the bullshit and all the beauty in you and to everything around you.

Give in to it as if it were your lover. It WANTS you. ALL of you. The way you have always wanted to be wanted. Nothing less will do.