The End of an Era

 9 years ago, this month, a chance meeting at a bar changed my life forever.

Even though said bar moved locations and another bar took its place, I have always felt a special connection to the place that housed some of my favorite, magical, first memories with Wes.

I am sad to report that the International Market Place is being torn down.  (don't even get me started about how having a Saks Fifth Avenue put up in its place makes me really feel, but  THIS article really sums that up for me)

I know that memories live in our hearts, but the reality that such a life changing place in my life is being destroyed breaks my heart.  I kept staring that that article over and over again, thinking of all the adventures at the Dawg House (popularly known as the Dizzle to the people we partied with), Bobby G's next door, the infamous koi pond and times we spent gallivanting through the Market Place during the years we lived in Honolulu.  I am sad.  So sad that tears form every time I think of not being able to go back there.

My kids are sitting next to me on the couch as I type this.  I can't help but think that they wouldn't exist if not for that night in the International Market Place when I met their Dad almost a decade ago. 

I am known for being very sentimental and for my attachments to things, people and places.  It's hard for me to let go.  I just always assumed we would go back, but it's been almost 8 years since we moved away and we have yet to have that opportunity.  I wish I had that chance to smile and laugh while we remember our beginnings and show the kids where we first met and fell in love only to have them roll their eyes at us and our sentimentality.

I also wish other people had the chance to meet and fall in love and create the kinds of memories we were lucky enough to experience.  Ever since I was a little girl Waikiki always felt like a magical place full of promise and possibility.  I feel sad for the people who will never know that Waikiki and especially for those who will never experience the International Market Place in all its real glory.  So here's to you International Market Place.  Thank you for the memories, they will forever live in my heart.

What I want to be when I grow up...

This year marks 10 years from my college graduation.  I don't feel like I have done much with my life.  I don't quite remember the exact plans I had for myself.  (although I don't think they went beyond the summer after graduation)  But I definitely didn't think life would happen this quickly.

I was newly married (to my first husband) and reveling in the fact that after 18 years I didn't have to go to school anymore.  I thought I would take a break, get a job in an office and then go back to get my Master's degree when the time was "right."  That time still hasn't come.
  
I tend to look at other people's lives and measure mine at their standards.  It's not fair - to me or them.  I haven't walked in their shoes, made their sacrifices or saw their choices.  I see with eyes from the outside looking in.  I need to stop looking out and look inside.  I know every new year I think about how I can make my life better, how I can stop making excuses, how I can make my  own dreams real.  But it seems overwhelming... just trying to take inventory of myself and figure out just what my dreams really are.

At different times in my life they have been different things.  When I was in college I saw my end goal as being a Religion Professor.  I didn't have a plan of how to get there, I kind of just thought things would fall into place (20 something me was kind of a dreamer... with no concrete plans).  I married for the first time in the middle of my senior year, my husband at the time put my dreams of being anything but his wife on hold.  I can't blame him, staying home and being able to do whatever I wanted at my leisure seemed like a good deal.  (It ended up not being such a great deal, one of my very first "Everything that glitters isn't gold" realizations)


After I left him I held a few random jobs to make ends meet.  It wasn't until a few years later that I became really passionate about makeup.  I have worked off and on in the industry for the last handful of years.  While immersed in makeup at M.A.C. my dreams included one day being a Trainer, working in a fabulous city and doing celebrity makeup.

I still love makeup, but I don't feel like it's my "calling."  I don't dream of the things I did back then.  I'm not even really sure what I want to do and time is ticking away.  I'll be 32 this year and I have no idea what I want to do with my life.  It's frightening.

I thought I would have it together by now, that I would be who I would be.  But, it seems that in my measurement of my own life I just come up short handed...

I am overly cautious and afraid to take the necessary leap of faith and terrified of failing.  I don't want to be wrong.  But in protecting myself from these things, I am also holding myself back from amazing opportunities that I won't even allow myself to imagine.

Disclaimer: I would like to clarify here that I don't think my life is "empty."  The last 7 years have been full of some of the most amazing things I have experienced: the births of my children, marriage to my favorite husband, a handful of businesses, travel and the experience of life in its extremes.  I am grateful for the hard learned lessons as well as the blessings.