Almost Paradise

I was on a much-deserved 4-day break sometIme lat week, and I feel refreshed and alive. It wasn't the place so much as it was the peace of mind that somehow came over me sometime during the whole experience. I am a traveller, no doubt about it.
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I had a few thoughts, though. And you, I want you to know they were about you, about us. We went on a river cruise, and I remembered the sunset cruise we were on a couple of months back. We trekked, and I remember our first and last trek. We walked on the beach, and I remembered us doing the same thing, half a world away. I sat atop a hill and remembered us overlooking that amazing volcano, juicein hand. We swam in the infinity pool and I remember a conversation that we had about that, and the last time I had a drink at a poolbar. Things are so much different now. Nice, but different. I don't quite miss you, you know. But I do cherish everything we went through, whether I was able to tell you so or not. Hopefully, you'll know anyway.
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The province, like my life, had a few bumps in the road. Here and there, the car would turn a corner and the driver would need tonecessarily slow down to avoid damaging the tires and the car' underside. I guess I was that car acouple of years back. Bumps in the road were a-plenty, and life seemed to move along ever so slowly. Looks like I hit the highway, sometime during the year, though, and I'm thankfully back in pace with every other Joe and Jane around me. Or so we'd all rather believe.
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I had some alone time when I was there, although the whole vacation was basically a girlfriends' getaway. It was nice to explore womanhood in ways that only I was privy to. In the mental way, of course. We were more comfortable with our womanhood and with our bodies, and we flaunted what we had. We were on vacation and lounged around without care for anyone else but ourselves. I ate what I wanted to, when and where I wanted to. I did things and activites that I preferred to, not because they were the norm, but because I wanted to. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that after 26 years of being me (with all the bumps in the road, of course), I've finally become comfortable with who I am. It's an awesome feeling. Something that I wish every woman can experience for themselves.
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More than the sights and the activities, I think I'll remember one particular dinner the most. Aside from the overabundant food on the table, company was great, live music was played on the piano by a loving father, and arrangements were prepared by a doting, loving mother. No words nor photos could ever describe how that moment felt. It was almost paradise, somewhere between my waking world and someone's dream.
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So, yeah, the vacation was more than just a getaway. It was an isolation of sorts --- an isolation of ME, being away from my world, being one with the world, and looking at the world, all in the same instant.