Leaving Utila was unbearable hard, if it had not been for Pete and our new-found travel companion: Frenchie I don´t think I would have left, infact I know I would still be there dancing to superb Wednesday night beats with my ridiculously attractive English-man under a starry sky. Arggg!!! My heart hurts at the thought, and if it were not a gruelly two day journey back I might do it. I miss that beautiful, clean island and the poeple on it like an organ of my body right now. 
We had not even been there two weeks but we had built a community and family there that I still miss deeply. It was an island like nothing else that I have encountered on my travels, with a unique community of semi-perminant travelers; those who meant to stay a week and ended up doing their Instructor course and staying three years. Yes there was also the usual traveling crowd, but people tended to stay longer and develope deeper roots. Miraculously in no time at all it was our home. We bonded with our dive masters and instructors over diving, sunset beers at Babalu´s, and communal dinners and barbeques. The last night we were there we all cooked dinner together and I asked our Quebeçoise chef, Ghislan, if he ever got used to people leaving. He put down his knife, looked me in the eyes, and told me: "Tara, I have been traveling for five years and it never gets any easier to say goodbye. If they are good people it always hurts."
We had not even been there two weeks but we had built a community and family there that I still miss deeply. It was an island like nothing else that I have encountered on my travels, with a unique community of semi-perminant travelers; those who meant to stay a week and ended up doing their Instructor course and staying three years. Yes there was also the usual traveling crowd, but people tended to stay longer and develope deeper roots. Miraculously in no time at all it was our home. We bonded with our dive masters and instructors over diving, sunset beers at Babalu´s, and communal dinners and barbeques. The last night we were there we all cooked dinner together and I asked our Quebeçoise chef, Ghislan, if he ever got used to people leaving. He put down his knife, looked me in the eyes, and told me: "Tara, I have been traveling for five years and it never gets any easier to say goodbye. If they are good people it always hurts."
Damn it, but he is right, I thought that because I have been traveling for so long that I would be immune to the pain. I left all of you right? But it does not get any easier, not even a smidgen. I feel like I left a piece of my heart on that island with the Cross Creek crew, Lynn my new soul-sister, and Brad (the English guy version of me who I had hopelessly fallen for in record time). Don´t get me wrong I LOVE the traveling life, it enables me to meet people and see different cultures, and experience things that I could never do back home; but if there were ever a reason for me to put up my traveling shoes it would be because I could not bear another goodbye to people I love.
There is always the option to stop loving people so recklessly, but I have so much love to give and there are so many deserving people out there. I might have loved and lost, but at least I love, at least I am alive and can feel the bittersweet pain of longing. Still, I wish now that we would not have left so soon. We had planned to stay pirate an island, and dance our hearts away tonight at Bar in the Bush, but alas nature had other plans for us.
Pete, Lynn, and I went on an adventure Saturday to check out the desolate north side of the island.
All was well and we found a beautiful volcanic lava-rock tide pool that overlooked the ocean where a massive storm was accruing. The sea was usually calm but on that day the waves were four to five feet tall and crashing against the rocks. 
As usual we curiously decided to explore and get as close to the waves as possible to stand in awe of mother nature, as usual mother nature bitch slapped us into submission by sending a massive wave that threw me and Lynn off the rocks straight into the volanic rock below.
(The Wave that rocked us, ya waterproof, crushproof, freezeproof camera! Definately my best investment thus far in life)
Needless to say we were pretty cut up, as usual Pete was fine (mainly due to his incredible manliness, but us wee womenfolk bore the brunt of the thrashing).
So there we were all cut up, on an island where the main activities includes diving, drinking, and um... diving (there are more but come-on the majority of the island never leaves the two street town except to dive). The coral seas are also extremely infectious and made my wounds puss up pretty bad after my Monday dive, so that kinda ruled out pirating an island. Also, Pete was getting bored of the island and itching to get a move on. And then there was the fact that Brad and I had been passing a highly infectious strand of some kind of tonsilitis back and forth since we first started hooking up. He would get better, then I would feel sick, I would get better than he would feel sick, but we both did not have enough willpower to keep our hands off of each other (I told you he is the closest thing to a male version of me I think I will ever find).
He had the same color of hair as I did that was curly and a bit blonder from the sea but almost the same length with piercing bright blue eyes instead of green eyes like mine. However, his manurisms laugh and sense of humor matched mine almost exactly. The first night we met we ended up talking the night away so intensely and incessantly that none of our friends could get a word in with us. We were in our own world from the start, but it was a new and exciting world because I have never, ever, dated anyone so similiar to me. (Now I don´t need to become a lesbian to find out what it is like to date me, yay!) At times it was almost scary how well I was able to understand him. We have similiar goals, life plans, aspirations, and motivations. We have been and want to go similiar places. We have similiar taste in comedy, music, and both of us express a deep interest in Anthropology. I trust all of his recommendations and ideas because his mind follows a similiar path as mine. We are both Aries: full of passion, fire, and life; always searching for another adventure, always curious to meet new people and experience new things. We are both much better looking in person than in photos (as shown below);
He had the same color of hair as I did that was curly and a bit blonder from the sea but almost the same length with piercing bright blue eyes instead of green eyes like mine. However, his manurisms laugh and sense of humor matched mine almost exactly. The first night we met we ended up talking the night away so intensely and incessantly that none of our friends could get a word in with us. We were in our own world from the start, but it was a new and exciting world because I have never, ever, dated anyone so similiar to me. (Now I don´t need to become a lesbian to find out what it is like to date me, yay!) At times it was almost scary how well I was able to understand him. We have similiar goals, life plans, aspirations, and motivations. We have been and want to go similiar places. We have similiar taste in comedy, music, and both of us express a deep interest in Anthropology. I trust all of his recommendations and ideas because his mind follows a similiar path as mine. We are both Aries: full of passion, fire, and life; always searching for another adventure, always curious to meet new people and experience new things. We are both much better looking in person than in photos (as shown below);
The similiarities are honestly endless. It was such an amazing experience and insight into myself and my relationships that I will be forever grateful for it. And yes I wish I could be back there on the island with him. I can still hear him whispering in my ear as I tried to leave him for the morning ferry,"There´s always the afternoon ferry..." And trust me if it were not for Pete and Frenchie I would have sunk back into that bed and stayed.... indefinately? (No not indefinately I am way too independent and stubborn to change my plans for anyone, so is he.)
Dating yourself is extremely comfortable in an exciting way, I knew what to expect from Brad, what to anticipate, and what to give. And can I say it was quite a relief to find someone who enjoys life as intensely and wholey as I do. Someone who can be as Hedonistic and unrestrained as I am. But ultimatley I do not think it would have worked out. He had his Dive Masters course on the island and I had my travel plans, and both of us were so headstrong that neither would have budged on their plans. You know what I discovered from dating me? I can be selfish sometimes, not in an uncaring way, but in a this is what I WANT way and there is nothing you can do about it. And you know what else? I can be really, really LOUD too. Like loud enought to wake up all your roomates and the cabana next door, and Brad was LOUDER than me. When we were together we could not control the volumes of our voices. I would get excited, then he would get excited, and so forth until we were pretty much screaming at each other, but no matter right cause we were both selfishly enjoying the exciting conversation we were having. Another thing I will desperately miss about that boy; I could not decide whether I liked kissing or talking to him more, not a bad dilema according to Brad, but still I don´t think I have met someone as stimulating as he was on all levels.
So to all the boys I have dated, I finally get it and I apologize for ever being: loud, selfish and unmoving in my actions or dreams, or too hard to meet up with in the future (cause lets be honest I have no clue where I will be in a week much less a year). Which makes it impossible to ever know if I will see Brad again, cause surprise, surprise: he is the same way. Although, I have hope. My Austrain friend told me that her grandfather told her once "that if you meet someone once, you will meet them again." Lets hope so, there were things left unsaid and undone that I would like to remedy.
And to all the people I have loved and had to leave; I left a piece of myself there with you, just like I left a piece of myself on Utila. Because my heart is plenty big enough and rejevunates at an alarming rate. The more you give the more you get right? Much love to everyone wherever they may be. I am off to enjoy a new country, new culture, and new people... with my bestest buddy Pete and our Third Muskateer: Frenchie, but those travel stories will come later. After I finish the unique and bittersweet chapter of Utila; I won´t forget you. In my mind you will always remain, fresh, clean, beautiful and alive. That is one sure good things about traveling: in my mind Utila will never change. It has been immortalized. The sea will always be fresh, the people will always be alive, young, beautiful and tanned, and the memories will always be good. Muchas Gracias Utila, muchas gracias.
Dating yourself is extremely comfortable in an exciting way, I knew what to expect from Brad, what to anticipate, and what to give. And can I say it was quite a relief to find someone who enjoys life as intensely and wholey as I do. Someone who can be as Hedonistic and unrestrained as I am. But ultimatley I do not think it would have worked out. He had his Dive Masters course on the island and I had my travel plans, and both of us were so headstrong that neither would have budged on their plans. You know what I discovered from dating me? I can be selfish sometimes, not in an uncaring way, but in a this is what I WANT way and there is nothing you can do about it. And you know what else? I can be really, really LOUD too. Like loud enought to wake up all your roomates and the cabana next door, and Brad was LOUDER than me. When we were together we could not control the volumes of our voices. I would get excited, then he would get excited, and so forth until we were pretty much screaming at each other, but no matter right cause we were both selfishly enjoying the exciting conversation we were having. Another thing I will desperately miss about that boy; I could not decide whether I liked kissing or talking to him more, not a bad dilema according to Brad, but still I don´t think I have met someone as stimulating as he was on all levels.
So to all the boys I have dated, I finally get it and I apologize for ever being: loud, selfish and unmoving in my actions or dreams, or too hard to meet up with in the future (cause lets be honest I have no clue where I will be in a week much less a year). Which makes it impossible to ever know if I will see Brad again, cause surprise, surprise: he is the same way. Although, I have hope. My Austrain friend told me that her grandfather told her once "that if you meet someone once, you will meet them again." Lets hope so, there were things left unsaid and undone that I would like to remedy.
And to all the people I have loved and had to leave; I left a piece of myself there with you, just like I left a piece of myself on Utila. Because my heart is plenty big enough and rejevunates at an alarming rate. The more you give the more you get right? Much love to everyone wherever they may be. I am off to enjoy a new country, new culture, and new people... with my bestest buddy Pete and our Third Muskateer: Frenchie, but those travel stories will come later. After I finish the unique and bittersweet chapter of Utila; I won´t forget you. In my mind you will always remain, fresh, clean, beautiful and alive. That is one sure good things about traveling: in my mind Utila will never change. It has been immortalized. The sea will always be fresh, the people will always be alive, young, beautiful and tanned, and the memories will always be good. Muchas Gracias Utila, muchas gracias.
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