Every now and then we need to escape. One of my favourite stories of my journey’s is the one where I ran away from society and went to live on a beach.
I began to believe my sanity was more important than the +$8000 I was making per month. I left my job at a TV station in the corporate world of Trinidad with a cushy office to go work in a bar cleaning puke in the toilets. Made my mom real proud. Needless to say she wasn’t happy.
When I left the TV station I intended to start my own graphics company. I thought if I push hard enough I could make it happen. It just so happened to be the beginning of the recession.
I tried so hard to get a job to pay my rent. I applied for every job I could find. I even applied at a pet store. They didn’t hire me because I had no cashier experience. I actually forgot I did. But even so, I had University graduate on there and that didn’t convince them that I would be able to learn how to use a cash register?
I prayed and needed someone to give me a chance. A man I knew named Nathaniel decided to give me a chance. I was going to be a bartender in a Lounge he owned. I loved my time there. Nate and I became great friends. I didn’t even realize I spent 2 years of my life there. I was allowed to be in charge of the things happening around me. I had a sense of control of my life. I threw parties for hundreds and even started my own little food business out of the lounge.
One day my mom came by to see where I was working and she said “When do you plan on getting out of here and getting a real job”. I saw it as my own space, but it wasn’t satisfactory to what society expected of a university degree holder…or worse, what my mom expected.
I began to feel very unhappy there… Restless. The last thing I needed was having people around me who were not supportive of me. And then one day I said I was leaving. I had nothing to go to, but I knew everything would be fine. I meditated and knew the path would show itself to me.
One day, I got the call of destiny. I sat in the airport with my friend Marcel to meet a man who had a job for us. He hired us to sell cell phones in Tobago. He paid for us to move there. Everything looked promising. It was another island and a fresh start.
After about a month of doing books and witnessing transactions, Marcel and I felt uneasy. It turned out he was scamming people by reselling damaged phones that people returned. He was selling them for hundreds of hard earned dollars. Marcel and I left because we refused to be part of something that hurt people. This wasn’t what we signed up for. Marcel had another path to go on at that point and so did I.
I went to the beach one day and stopped a jet ski operator named Aidan. I told him this was what I wanted to do. He was reluctant. He said “I’ve seen this before, you are probably just wanting to do this for a short time and you are probably running away from something. You aren’t going to last long here.”
I said I was running towards something! I just haven’t seen it yet.
He took me to meet Nigel at the shop on the other end of the beach. Nigel owned the shop. He said yes I can work with them. This was the beginning of a new adventure and another chapter.
Tumbleweed~gypsy 