One Year in Hilo
Hooray! I can’t believe that I moved here a year ago today. My heart is overflowing with gratitude, and I feel more at peace than I have ever been in my life. Here are some of my reflections on my latest pass around the sun.
I feel more present and alive. It is surreal to live in the place that I dreamed about my entire life. It is like the bubble I was living in has popped. I am shook at how much of my time, energy, heart, and spirit was focused on this land, living the life I thought I would have had. I was extremely disassociated from myself. Now that my mind, heart, soul, and body are all here, I feel like my system is resetting and I love how I feel like I am coming together.
I am letting myself be. Up until recently, I pressured myself to go to every beach, festival, cultural event, and see every sight. I wanted to “live” like the locals do and “relive” all the experiences I thought I missed out on. After becoming exhausted with so much activity, I realized there is no way to know if I would have grown up doing any of those things. My birth family might not have had the time, interest, or money to do any of these things. We might have moved to the mainland at some point. Now I feel less pressure on doing. And now I can focus on just being.
I am swimming with, not drowning in my grief. I’ve stopped comparing myself to locals that were raised here. I used to just drown in sorrow that I didn’t know Hawaiian culture, the many Hawaiian words that are used in daily life, or speak pidgin like the locals do. I mourned the loss of Hawaii my whole life, and it doesn’t seem to make sense to focus on mourning while I am here. Instead, I have turned my focus to absorbing as much of Hawai’i that I can while I have it all around me.
I am figuring out my place in this native land. There are many discussions about people moving to Hawai’i and not respecting the land, native culture, or people. The number of Native Hawaiians living in the Hawaiian Islands is now less than the number of Native Hawaiians that live in the US (mainland). The cost of living is chasing this population away because so many non-local people move here and raise the prices of land, housing, and living. And as I well know, when people move away from their land and community, their culture gets diluted. This is a difficult pill to swallow, that my journey of learning about my people, culture, and land might be adding to the displacement of the Native Hawaiians. I do what I can to support the local community, like shopping at locally owned businesses, recycling (which is hard to do here), learning about the history of Hawai’i, using reef safe products, and staying connected to the land and my ancestors about what my role is here. I have much more to learn about why I am here, and I get a sense that being here is just a stepping stone in my healing journey.
I love being around people that look like me. Yes, I mentioned this in my 6 month update but I continue to be so happy about it that I have to mention it again!
I am so happy to have an opportunity to learn all of this, and most of all, grow and heal. Here is to whatever the next year brings! Thank you for following me on my journey.