India, Here I Come! How A Life-Changing Trip Transpired

India has always been a country of intrigue for me. It’s one of my favorite cuisines (I seek it out whenever I travel to big cities) and it’s the birthplace of yoga, a critical part of my physical and spiritual life. It’s one of my bucket list destinations. But with at least a 25-hour flight and two little boys at home, I haven’t imagined it in my near future.

Life has a way of making your dreams come true, though, so long as your dreams are in line with your growth and greater way of being, I believe.

I met my friend Michelle at another friend’s baby’s baptism. Somehow we got to talking about travel and India during our first conversation – she’d been to India before so I was eager to hear her stories. Fast forward two years later and I accompanied Michelle to a cooking class lunch at the new Indian restaurant in Naples, 21 Spices by Chef Asif. Around this time Michelle started talking about making one of her life dreams happen, to help kids in India. During her trip to India with her husband they were shocked to see all the kids in need and she said she couldn’t spend another moment there without doing something about it. So they spent a day buying groceries and distributing them to kids on the streets. At that point her dream of continuing to help these little ones began to take shape.

A couple times after our lunch at 21 Spices, Michelle mentioned that she was planning a trip to India this summer to put her plan into motion, in case I wanted to join her. I didn’t think twice about it though I would have loved to accompany her. I have an almost-1 and almost-3 year old at home and our lives are busy… there didn’t seem to be any room for a trip so far away that didn’t include my family. Meanwhile, I listened to Michelle’s plans develop, including a partnership with Chef Asif to put together a fundraiser to support children and organizations in his home city of Hyderabad.

A couple weeks ago I ran the longest and one of the biggest conferences of my career in Palm Springs. It was a success but I was exhausted. I crashed on my red-eye from California as well as my final flight leg from JFK to home. When we touched down in Ft. Myers I turned my phone on and viewed this text from Michelle:

“How was Palm Springs?:-) Any chance you want to go to Hyderabad with me? I’ll be gone a week, at most, sometime the last weeks of June. I have meetings set up with the Sphoorti Orphanage and will most likely visit an orphanage for babies as well. You can be as involved as you want, visiting the orphanages with me, hanging with the kids, or just seeing the sites of Hyderabad:-)”

This time I didn’t blow it off as an impossibility. Something inside of me thought, maybe I could make this work. But mostly my tired eyes, exhausted body, and inspired heart were saying, “What’s the point of working this hard if I can’t do the things in life that fill my soul?”

I ran the idea by my husband Mike that night. He didn’t hesitate. “You should go,” he said, with no questioning. He knows how important travel is to me and recognized that it was a great opportunity.

I told Michelle I would see if I could make it work. I checked my work schedule and remaining vacation days and it fit. I asked my mom if she was available to fly out and help with the boys while I was gone; she was. Within five days of her sending me the text that hit me at just the right time, we had booked our tickets to Hyderabad.

I struggled with the fact that I had just been gone for a week for work, would be in Costa Rica for a week with Mike, and then would be leaving my family four weeks later to spend a week in India. It was especially hard because the boys were acting out from my being gone for work and needed extra attention from me. (Though I was also needing extra of them so I believe we were playing into one another, perhaps just as we should have been.) But when it came down to it, I realized that every trip I’ve taken has made me who I am today. It’s taught me about the world, brought on new perspective, and opened my eyes to the many blessings we take for granted. I’m also proud that I live my life with very little regrets. I knew deep in my heart that if I didn’t take this trip that seemed to be so well aligned and “meant to be” I would regret it later. That’s not what I wanted to teach my boys.

I will of course miss my family when I’m gone. But knowing that I have travel to look forward to adds an extra spring to my step. It motivates me to get out of bed in the morning and bang out my job. And maybe most importantly, knowing that I will be gone encourages me to choose presence when I’m with my family. I soak in every snuggle, capture every smile, let the bed time process linger longer than it needs to, and unplug and slow down when it’s family time. All of it is what makes life great, and I’m determined to take it all in.

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