There Is No Plan B

I'll be honest, I am an options guy.  Whatever it is that I decide to do, I always give myself an out, an escape route, an alternative, call it what you will.  I never let myself get tied down into a situation from which I cannot extricate myself when it's necessary to move on.  I'm committed just as long as it works for me.  Commitment has never really been my forte.  At least, that is one way to look at it, but that is not the complete picture, that is only one part of a greater story.

Let's talk about commitment.  Sure, I've never been married.  My relationship track history does not make for the most pleasurable of readings.  Actually, it would be a pretty short coffee break type of read if I'm  honest.  And when I say coffee, I don't mean Sunday morning lounging around on a sofa with the papers in a cosy, stylish cafe, with notes of jazz mixing with the aroma and the ambiance.  I mean more of a quick, blink and its gone espresso.  I've lived in more places than I care to think about.  I've had plenty of jobs and I've tried quite a few careers.  I know many people in many countries around the world, in some way, I have touched the lives of thousands of people, yet my close friends number only a few.  I can pack all of my belongings into a couple of suitcases that would fit into the back of a car.  That's my flee mentality right there.   

Then there are the things that I have deeply committed to in my life, like the pursuit of my dreams.  Hang on though.  You know what?  Thinking about it right now, I see something more than the pursuit of my dreams.  Suddenly, I see with absolute clarity my entire life history and the pattern therein.  My life has been about more than my dreams, my life has always been about my heart.  It is easy to confuse the two since our true dreams live within the heart, but there is more to the heart than only dreams.  

I have always been emotionally connected.  I never really understood this until quite recently.  It doesn't just mean my emotions are on the surface (although  they generally are), it means that I live through my emotions, I experience life through my emotions.  The heart contains our emotions as well as our dreams.  Our hearts are the windows to our souls, they represent the real, authentic you.  The connection that I have to my heart is incredibly strong.  It is truly my driving force.  Everything I have ever done, every decision I have ever made, has been because of my heart.  The voice of my heart is never quiet.  Sometimes it whispers to me, other times it's like a sonic boom that explodes with such force that tears form in my eyes as a way of releasing the pressure.  Oh yes, I cry a lot, both through laughter and through sadness.  There was a time when I was ashamed of this, when I turned my face to hide my tears, but not any more.  My heart really is everything to me.  In fact, my heart is me and I am my heart.  Our link inseparable.  Even my signature, unknowingly to me for many years until someone pointed it out, contains a heart shape.  I have needed to follow its calling, I could never escape it.  It has led me on some of the most amazing adventures, to witness some of the most incredible things, to meet the most wonderful people, and it has led me to the pits of despair, to complete and utter hopelessness, where only sadness and pain were to be found.

Yet, I would never change my heart, I trust it completely.  I am here right now because of it.  Everything I have ever done has led me to this point and my heart has been leading me here in its own way, showing me all the things I needed to see, teaching me all of the lessons that I needed to learn, leading me to the people that I needed to help me along the way, always guiding me towards the inevitable.  And here I am, finally after all of these years, faced with the inevitability of my life.

My heart is changing.  I can feel it. There has been a subtle shift inside that tells me that things are different to how they used to be.  My heart continues to speak to me and I to listen to its voice, but that voice is no longer urgent and incessant.  It is no longer driving me onwards to the next place I need to be, because I am in that place.  My heart is content.  Tomorrow, I am stepping through the doors of a school classroom for the first time as a trainee school teacher.  This has been my long held dream, the dream to which my heart was always leading me, subtly steering me and guiding me through the turmoil and turbulent waters, giving wind to my sail when the currents ceased, moving me ever on, inexplicably towards my destiny.

I am ready, finally ready to stop moving.  I don't want to move again because I feel that I have come home. It's more than simply that though.  I am ready to commit.  Fully commit to my life, to the life I have always wanted, and the life that I have been denying myself for so long.  I don't mind that it has taken me this long because I know deep down that I was never ready before, even though there were times when I wanted it so bad that I would have done anything to keep it.  I couldn't have kept it before because my heart would have moved me on, just as it did, it had to move me on, I understand that now.  Not this time.  Here I am, tomorrow one of the longest held and one of my greatest dreams turns into reality.  That is not the end because I have several more dreams.  Tomorrow only marks the beginning.  Without tomorrow, I will never realise those other dreams.  To realise those, I have to stop moving, I have to let go of my options, I have to stop looking for the escape route.  And you know what?  I know that I will because my heart tells me that now is the right time.  Commitment doesn't start with a 'C', it starts with me.  And just for once, there is no plan B.

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Why There Will Always Be Another Dream To Fulfill

Some days, I struggle to figure out where I am, I cannot fathom what I am doing, nor can I understand how I arrived at this moment, to be in this place.  I question everything, I think about the choices that I have made, the decisions that I have taken, but there are two questions that come back to me time and again.  They force me to evaluate my life and to search for the truth inside of my heart.  I ask myself whether I am happy, and I wonder whether this life that I have created for myself, is truly my dream?

I created this life for myself.  I am both the architect and the builder.  No one is responsible for where I am, what I am doing, how I live, no one, that is, except for me.  I see taking personal responsibility and having accountability for your own actions and decisions, as one of the most important lessons that can be learned in life.  I am not here under duress or coercion, I wasn't forced into making any of my decisions a certain way by any other person.  All of my major life decisions have been taken by me, alone.  I had no long-term partner to include in the thought processes and who could help with deciding the direction to take.  It has always been this way.  I guess, people might describe me as being headstrong, because I make bold, life altering decisions often, and when I do, I do so quickly and decisively.  But to call me headstrong would be wrong.

No decision to change my life, to alter the direction of my path has been made by my head.  For sure, being a logical type of person, I weigh up the pros and cons, I might even make use of my project management skills and create a weighted decision table to aid in my thinking, and I'll always write down a list of advantages and disadvantages, so that I can more easily visualise everything with which I am grappling.  But the plain and simple truth is that every decision I have ever made has been made by my heart.  Each decision was made before I sat down and began the steps of logically analysing everything.  I already knew the outcome, I already knew what I was going to do, even though I might not be able to admit that to myself at the time.  Ultimately, my heart had decided in a single moment and what I have learned on my journey, is that I always follow my heart.  I know no other way.  I follow the way of the heart because rather than headstrong, I am and will always be, heartstrong.

I write here on these pages, that if you always follow your heart, then you will unlock the light within yourself, and you will ultimately discover and achieve your dreams.  So, it logically follows that if I am following my heart, then the life that I have now must be my dream.  If it is not, then everything in which I believe completely unravels and falls apart.  More than this though, it would mean that not only have I deceived myself, I have deceived every single person with whom I have spoken to about letting go of the fear, to follow the heart, and I have deceived every person that has taken the time to read this blog.  Can it be true then, that I have not achieved my dream and therefore, by not achieving my dream, I am living a kind of pseudo happiness, not the deep rooted kind that emanates from your soul?

No, that is not true.  I do follow my heart and I have achieved my dreams.  How do I know this?  Simply because when I am immersed under the ocean, surrounded by the incredible beauty of life, perfectly balanced in a state of neutral buoyancy, like an astronaut in zero gravity in space, when I am lost in tranquility, feeling calm and relaxed, and when I witness the miracles of life, then I know that I have achieved a dream.  When I look back upon my life, to the time that came before my life change, when I was working for IBM, I am filled with a deep sense of joy and pleasure, knowing of all that I achieved during my career and how I not only achieved that dream, but exceeded it by all of my wildest expectations.  These are the two biggest dreams that I have achieved thus far in my life.  There are many others.  Smaller, yet equally as important, because they are the steps along my path of learning and gaining an understanding of myself, my life, and my heart.

The problem is not that I am yet to achieve my dreams and find true happiness, because I have.  What I have realised is that all that I have gained and achieved so far, all of learning, of evolving my soul, of finding my path, of discovering my true self, all of this is just one part of my dreams.  I still have other dreams that I am waiting to fulfill.  Until I can achieve these dreams and make them a waking reality in my life, then there is always going to be a part of me that feels a sense of unhappiness and of knowing that the life that I have now, is not yet complete.  Only when I become a husband and a father, will I have fulfilled what I believe to be truly my life's work.  Then, perhaps I will know that I achieved all of my dreams, then I shall know true and complete happiness, then shall my heart finally be at peace.

Wait.  No.  That is not right.  You see, even then, I will have other dreams to fulfill, new lessons to be learned, more steps to take along my path.  It will never stop and I hope it never stops.  My heart will drive me onwards, along the path of my choosing, along my one true path, until the moment I draw my final breath, and look back upon a life that was lived, and dreams that were fulfilled.  And in that final moment, I will smile the sweet smile of pure happiness, and then I will know that I never knew the devil of regret. 

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Through writing this post, I have created a new word that describes perfectly, those of us who follow our hearts and strive to unlock the light that we hold within.  We are the heartstrong.  We are bold, we are adventurous, we are daring, and we are courageous.  We live our lives deliberately and we feel emotions deeply.  We strive to learn, to grow, to evolve our souls.  We have opened our hearts to see the miracles of life that surround us every single moment.  We know that love is the force of the universe and is found in everything.  And we the ones who will never give up the fight for our dreams.  Heartstrong.  Join us.

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Why The Moaning Has To Stop

This morning, I had to catch myself, to stop myself from complaining and moaning about my job.  It is all too easy to moan, being British, it seems to be something that we do rather well.  It is almost as if it is part of the culture.  We moan about the weather, the buses running late, the queues at the post office, the state of the country.  In fact, the British will pretty much moan about anything and everything, there is no subject that is off limits.  But I am not here to bemoan the British way of life, I am here to focus on my own life and how I feel about it, when I catch myself moaning.

Moaning.  To moan, is to utter a constant barrage of complaints, lamenting a given situation.  In my first job, I would walk around the office and either be a party to, or overhear conversations where my fellow workers would complain about the pay, the conditions, their manager, the direction the company was heading in, their lack of responsibility, their workload, the car parking in the employee car park - basically everything.  Two things are clear in my mind from back then.  First and perhaps because of the situation from which I had escaped, I was happy and proud to be working in those offices, doing what I was doing.  For sure the pay was not great, but the situation was a whole lot better than standing on a production line, inserting plastic gutters into the back of a refrigerator and securing them with two small plastic rivets, one thousand four hundred times per day.  I fully appreciated where I was, and knew, even at the age of seventeen, that life could be a whole lot worse, because it had been.

Secondly, when I heard these conversations, a question arose in my mind.  I wondered why, if things were so bad and clearly that person was extremely unhappy working there, why they just did not leave and work somewhere else?  I did not understand why anyone would accept the situation that they were in. This is for me, a very significant time in my life.  It is obvious to me, that even back then, I knew that I would never stay in a situation that made me unhappy.  I just did not see the point in doing so.  I thought back then, as I still do today, that if something makes you unhappy, you have two clear choices, you either change the situation, or you accept it.

That is basically how I live my life.  All the while that I am happy, I stay where I am, doing what I do, being with who I am with.  The moment that I become unhappy, then I act, and I make a change.  I have never seen the need to maintain a situation that is negative passed a certain point.  There comes a time when my heart says "No more" and when I can no longer feel my heart in something, then I know that it is time to move on, to go somewhere new, to let a person go their own way, or to try something new.

My life history is filled with such decisions.  I had to drop all of my so-called friends because I could take no more of their ridicule and bullying.  I changed jobs because I no longer felt in tune with the company for which I was working.  I changed my home because I felt the need to be some place else.  I let friendships go because those people were no longer my kind of people, or no longer thought the way that I did.  I changed myself because I was not happy with the way I looked.  I finished relationships because I could no longer feel my heart in them.  I did not spend time complaining about my situations, I did not waste my energy moaning about them.  I simply stood up one day and said "Enough.  Today is the day that I make the change."  From that moment on, I was committed to moving on, to changing my life, to eradicating the situation that was making me unhappy.

Life is short and we only get one go on the merry-go-round.  Why would you want to keep negative situations in your life, situations that make you unhappy?  What purpose do they serve you?  It is my belief that people who moan and complain like to do so.  It is as if they have something to prove, that they are able to keep going in the face of adversity.  I think these people are cowards and live their lives out of fear.  You may disagree and think to yourself that some people are unable to change their situation, that they are trapped in a certain situation.  With some very minor exceptions involving imprisonment and slavery, I do not believe that to be true.  What is true of humanity, is that we each are capable of change.  We are each able to alter our situation.  Yes, some situations are more difficult to change than others, but they can all be changed - if you are willing.  People who moan are generally speaking not willing to change their lives.  Moaners and complainers are people who have given up on their dreams.  They are people who believe that they are undeserving of their dreams and of happiness, they are people who feel resentment and bitterness.   

Moaning is an expression of negativity.  Change is an expression of positivity.  What I realised this morning, as I was eating my breakfast cereal and enjoying my first coffee of the day, was that I was in danger of falling into the trap of moaning about my life and doing nothing about it.  I am not that person.  I never have been, and I never will be.  I empower myself to act.  I empower myself to change.  And I allow myself to be happy.  I cast aside unhappiness and situations that do not work for me, and I seek out those that do.  Those that bring me joy, a smile to my face, and a warm glow in my heart.  For me, this is the way of the one true path.  This is how I will continue to walk in the light.

Today, I decided not to moan about my life.  I decided that if I continue to be here, doing what I do, working where I work, then I am going to shut up about those things that make me unhappy.  If they were really such a big problem, I would change my place of work, I would move on again.  In exchange for not moaning, life showed me exactly why I do what I do, where I do it.  This morning, on my two dives, I was rewarded with sharks, rays and a huge array of life under the ocean.  Later in the afternoon, I swam the short distance from the beach to our dive boat and I jumped off the top deck.  As I did, I let out a loud "Whoo-hoo!" and let the child inside of me escape, I gave the child his wings to fly free.  Life is not so bad.  I have no reason to moan.  I have no reason to complain.  I am where I want to be, doing what I love to do.  Life has been kind, but the moment it is not, you will never hear me moaning about it.  You will never hear me complaining.  That is a promise I make to myself and to my heart.

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The Price That Must Be Paid

Walking the one true path is the greatest gift that you can possibly give to yourself.  The rewards of seeking out and of discovering your true purpose in life are truly remarkable, and in so doing, you will experience among other things elation, joy, a profound sense of happiness, total pleasure in what it is that you do, a sense of true purpose and accomplishment, a deep connection to life, and more than anything else, a sense of love.  But let me warn you.  Each step that you take along the path, does not come for free.  There will be tough decisions which must be made, and there will be a price that must be paid for your discovery and the enlightenment with which it brings. Are you ready to pay that price?

A man walks along the sand of a deserted, tropical beach.  The sun radiates down from a cloudless sky.  Yellow against blue.  The turquoise of the water is broken only by the rhythm of the waves, that create lines of white, that move perpetually ever on toward the sand, and to their ultimate doom, in the eternal cycle of the ocean.  Walking alongside the man is a dog.  Playful, barking with joy, running in and out of the water, trying to coax the man into throwing a stone, into throwing a stick, into throwing anything that can be chased and retrieved.  Together, man and dog, dog and man, walk ever on.  And the dream is made.

This was not just a dream. This was my dream.  This is my dream.  Only, now it is no longer a dream, it is my waking reality.  The man and the beach.  The dog is still to come.  I chose to follow my heart and to find a way of making my dream become my reality.  It wasn't easy, it's still not easy.  It has involved a lot of hard work, dedication, sacrifice, determination, luck and most of all, courage.  And yet here I am.

I was born in England.  I grew up in the south of England.  I experienced snow in winter and hard frosts on the ground in winter.  On any given day of the year there is the possibility of rain.  Oh! the endless days of rain.  Grey clouds settle over England and stay there, uninterrupted for weeks at an end, denying the people any glimmer of sunshine.  It becomes oppressive.  The clouds seem to push down, to suffocate the life out of those below.  It is possible to swim in the sea during the summer, but that requires stamina and hardiness, to endure the cold water.  The local beach where I grew up is a  mixture of shingle and sand, with large wooden groynes that run perpendicular to the coastline, at a spacing of around 50 yards.  All along the expanse of the beach that lines the residential area, a stretch of around six miles, these large wooden monstrosities lay, their purpose, to prevent the shingle and sand from being washed away by the long shore drift of the tide.  I longed for a soft, golden, uninterrupted, natural, sand beach, fringed by palm trees, and with warm, clear, tropical water.  England did not fit the picture that I had created in my mind for of dream.  England was not the place where I could live out my dream.  To do that, it would be necessary to move overseas.


Life is full of tough choices and hard decisions.  Anything that is worthwhile is not obtained easily.  Walking the true path is like this.  To fulfill my dream, to discover my true purpose in life, it was necessary for me to go overseas and in doing so, to live my life away from my parents, away from my brother and my sister, away from my grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.  It was necessary to leave behind those people I have known since childhood and count as my closest, dearest and oldest of friends.  It was necessary to leave behind my best and closest friend.  In short, to achieve my dream, I left behind every singe person that I cared for.  That is the price that I was willing to pay, that is the price that had to be paid.  There was no other option.  Actually, that is not strictly true.

Of course there was another option.  I could have chosen not to pursue my dream.  I could have chosen a life in England, close to my family and friends.  And in so doing, I would not only have denied myself my dream and the chance of finding true happiness,  I would have chosen the path of pain, misery and regret.  Had I not left England, I would forever have been unfulfilled and forever questioning my purpose and existence.  Forever wondering and asking myself, "What if..?"  My life would have been plagued by remorse and regret.

That I left my family behind not mean for one instant that I do not love them dearly.  I do.  It does not mean that I am not close with my parents, with my brother, or with my sister.  I am.  It does not mean that my family does not love me.  I know that they do.  What this means is that in fact, I love them all the more because of it.  Never once have my parents tried to stand in my way or stop me.  Never once have they tried to talk me out of going overseas.  They know me.  They know that I am driven by a passion to do what I must, and so they let me.  They understand that I must find my way.  That is the greatest gift they could give to me, and I am so very grateful for it, as I am grateful to them for all that they have given to me.  I could not be here, living out my dream, if it were not for their love and the opportunities that they have afforded me.

I return to England and visit my family and friends every 18 months to two years on average.  The thought of leaving, knowing that I do not know the next time that I will see them breaks my heart.  It rips me apart.  But I have to do it, if I am to follow my dreams.

That is the price to be paid.  There is always a price.  I pay my price for following my dreams.  I know that I must, I understand the sacrifices I must make, in order to pursue my purpose, in order to walk my one true path.  Yes, I pay my price, are you willing to pay yours?

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The Pebble and the Moon - Part Two

The Pebble and the Moon - Part Two

Two years had passed since the day when Eli and Alicia first sat on the beach and looked out upon the ocean, discovering the love that they held in their hearts for each other. It was soon after, that Eli had begun helping at Alicia's parents bakery.  In the evenings when school was finished, he helped with the preparations for the baking early the next morning.  On Saturdays, he would arrive early in the morning and help her father fire up the ovens and he would help him with the baking, whilst Alicia helped her mother with the customers.  Eli and Alicia enjoyed these opportunities to spend more time with each other.  They could talk together whilst they worked and they would steal secret looks and smiles with each other whenever they thought her parents were not looking at them.  That was impossible of course, since Alicia's parents knew perfectly well what they were doing and they smiled happily, enjoying seeing their daughter happy and content, as their hearts recalled the days long ago of their own courtship.

The time that Eli enjoyed the most was Saturday evening when he and her Alicia's father prepared the small sweet breads that were taken to the church every Sunday morning.  As Eli prepared the small breads, he would put one aside specially for Alicia.  Each time he put one aside, he was take a knife and carve a message for her in the soft dough, or he would draw a heart with Alicia's name through the middle of it.  Eli knew that each Saturday evening, as he prepared the sweet bread for Alicia, he was not only making a sweet bread for her, he was giving her a piece of himself.  As his knife drew the lines that formed the letters, that became words, he knew that it did so with love and that the love came from deep within his heart.  The sweet bread for him was a gift filled with love, for his love.  Each Sunday after church, the two of them would go down to the beach and sit at their rock, looking out across the ocean, just as they did that first time, and each week, Eli would present Alicia with the sweet bread he had prepared for her.  She loved to receive them and even though she knew that each Sunday he would bring her one, she never stopped feeling excited and thrilled with his gift, just as she had the very first time he had taken one of the breads, wrapped in a small white cotton napkin, from the small basket he had brought with him and handed it to her.  It was not an expensive or extravagant gift, but that was never important for Alicia.  For she knew what all people that are truly in love know, that it is not the gift itself that tells the story, it is the thought and the deeds that go with the gift, that reveal the simple truth.  Alicia knew that each time Eli presented her with one of the simple sweet breads, he was really saying to her, "I will love you until the end of my days."

During the first year Eli never gave a thought to the ocean.  Although he would sit with Alicia each Sunday after church, his thoughts were completely on her and their lives.  He would look at the ocean, but he did not see it any longer.  Eli became immersed in the life of the bakery and being with Alicia and her family.  It was exciting to learn new things and the time he spent there meant that he could see more of Alicia.  He learned about different types of flour and the techniques for making the various kinds of doughs that were required, he learned how to knead and work the dough, how to roll it out without it breaking and sticking to the roller or the work top, her father taught him about the ovens and he learned the correct temperatures and times for all of the different types of breads, cakes and pastries that were baked at the family bakery.  He was so busy with life at the bakery and between spending time with Alicia and his school work, he no longer had time to see his friends after school, nor did he spend much time with his own family.  When the first of the summer storms had rolled in, Eli didn't even think to go down to the beach and watch the waves crashing in against the shore.  That evening, rather than filling his heart and soul, and senses with witnessing the sights of nature untamed, he spent the evening at Alicia's parents house, eating dinner and discussing whether they should find a different supplier for their flour, since their current supplier was threatening to increase prices in the new year.  There had been a time when Eli used to walk down to the beach after dinner in the evenings and sit quietly, looking up at the bright array of stars in the night sky, quietly contemplating life and the universe.  These were the times when his thoughts would drift away to distant lands and to wonder what it would be like to sail across the oceans.  Since Alicia had come into his life, he no longer did this.  It wasn't that Alicia ever prevented him, nor that she discouraged him from going down to spend time at the ocean, it was  just that there was always something else to be done and Eli wanted to spend as much time with Alicia as possible.

Without knowing it, Eli was committing the same mistake that so many people make at the beginning of a relationship.  Although it seemed to him that he was doing the things that he wanted to do and that he was passionate about, he was actually neglecting his own needs and the needs of his heart.  His primary focus had become Alicia and because of that, he was losing himself in the life of another person.  He wanted to be available to help her and to show her that he would grow up to be the kind of man that would be a loving and supportive husband.  It felt natural to Eli to want to spend as much time as possible with Alicia because he loved her, but he did not realise that all the time he neglected himself, it was to his own detriment.  Eli lacked the balance between spending time with the person he loved and spending time doing those things that he had always loved to do.  He no longer pursued his own dreams, he no longer pursued his own passions.  He was unable to see what was happening to him and that he was slowly changing as a person.  This was because he had ceased to do the things in life that he had once loved and because of this, he had also ceased to be the person that he was when he first sat down on the beach with Alicia.  He was losing part of his soul.  He was losing the very essence of himself.  As much as Eli was oblivious to all of this, his heart was not.  His heart was biding its time, giving Eli time to remember his own path, giving Eli a chance to rediscover his own path by his own volition, before it acted.  Eli's heart knew that the path to true happiness cannot be found through the life of another.  It knew that each person has their own path to walk in life, and it knew that true happiness, the kind that lasted, the kind that was found at the very core of a person's being, could only be found by walking that path.  Eli's heart knew that for two souls to find each other and to stay together required that each must be able to continue to walk their own path, while maintaining and building the love between them.  The love should flourish because of their respective paths, not in spite of them.  Eli's heart would wait for the right moment to present itself and then it would act.  It would deal a decisive strike that would reawaken Eli's dreams.

It was at some time during the second year that Eli once more began to feel the lure of the ocean.  It happened one night as he lay in his bed at his parents house.  A storm system out at sea had been generating strong winds all throughout the day and during the night.  Eli's heart was restless and as Eli lay asleep in bed, the wind blowing a gale outside, his heart stirred itself and decided that tonight was the night when Eli would remember his path and would recall his dreams.  The problem for his heart was the Eli was asleep.  The storm continued and Eli's heart grew more and more agitated.  It knew that this night was its chance, but still Eli slept on oblivious to the torment of his heart.  And then Eli's heart decided that it had to act or it would become forgotten just like Eli's dreams.  As Eli lay sleeping, his heart readied itself to do something that it had never done before.

Eli woke with a start in the darkness and sat up.  He wasn't sure what had woken him and he remained sitting in bed to listen for any disturbances or noises coming from downstairs.  There had been rumours of a band of thieves operating in the area.  As he sat listening, he could hear the sound of the waves crashing into shore  through his window, driven on by the storm winds that had shown no signs of abating during the night.  In his mind's eye, Eli was able picture the waves, to see the surf pounding the shore, he could feel the majesty of the wild and untamed ocean and he wished he could go down and watch it for himself.  Eventually, after satisfying himself that there were no thieves, he laid back down and began to drift off into sleep, accompanied by the noise of the still howling wind and the thoughts in his head were carried out across the ocean.  As Eli fell asleep once more, his heart was happy and it began to sing to itself.  It knew that it had struck the decisive blow that was needed.  All it had to do now was to make sure that Eli did not forget again.

The following afternoon, Eli asked Alicia if she would like to take a walk that evening with him, once they were done with their chores at the bakery.  Alica wondered whether Eli had something important to say to her or perhaps to ask her.  Although they were still young, she knew that if Eli was to ask for her hand in marriage, her father would consent.  They would simply have a longer engagement, that was all, but at least they would be officially committed to each other.  The thought made Alicia smile broadly for the rest of the afternoon.  The evening found the two of them walking out under a blanket of stars, the moon, a crescent that hung low in the sky, accompanied them and gave light to show their way.  They walked hand in hand along the beach, enjoying the company of each other.  Eli was content to walk along by the water with the girl that he loved on his hand.  His eyes feasted on the silvery surface of the ocean and it filled his soul, he began to smile.  Not the kind of smile that is created from a fleeting thought that comes and goes as quickly.  No, this was the kind of smile that began from the very depths of his being and continued upwards, until it found its escape through the lips of Eli.  Alicia could see that Eli was happy.  In fact, she decided, it she had not seen him smile and look this happy for a long time.  "My love.  You look so happy right now", she said.

"Yes, I am Alicia.  I really am.  I had forgotten the effect that the ocean has on me.  It is an old dear friend that speaks directly to me.  I've missed it."

"Then you should come down to the beach more often Eli.  You must find the time to do it, if it makes you so happy.  I cannot remember the last time that we walked together like this."  The two of them fell silent as they walked, each lost in their own thoughts.  "Do I make you happy Eli?", Alicia asked.

"Oh Alicia.  You make me more happy than I have ever been.  I love you Alicia.  I have loved you from the moment I first saw you, so long ago.  Nothing is ever going to change that.  Do you see that star up there?  The really bright one that is to the left of the moon?"

"Yes, I see it Eli."

"My love shines more brightly Alicia.  If I released all of the love that I have for you in my heart, it would fill the entire universe with a light so strong, it would blind the eyes of all who looked upon it", and as he said this he felt it to be true.

Alicia stopped walking and pulled Eli around by the hand, so that they faced one another.  Then she pulled his face down towards hers and she kissed him deeply, she kissed him passionately, and she kissed him at that moment because she knew that he was going to be the only man for her.  "I love you too Eli", she said, "I love you too."

They walked on for a while longer before turning and heading back home for the night.  Each of them was happy.  Alicia was happy because she was sure she had found the man she was going to marry and Eli because he had rediscovered his love of the ocean. 

Things seemed to change from that evening.  In the beginning, it was only that Eli would excuse himself during an evening and take an occasional short walk along the beach.  Some evenings, Alicia would accompany him and they would walk along hand in hand and talk happily together.  As the months passed, Eli's walks became more frequent and he began to spend more time down at the beach, often sitting alone, staring out across the vastness that stretched away before him.  It wasn't that he was any less attentive to Alicia when they were together, then, he was the same loving and caring Eli, it was just that he spent less and less time with her.  During that first year, Alicia had become so used to Eli being with her that now it seemed strange when he was not.  She began to worry that perhaps something was wrong.  That perhaps Eli didn't love her the way that he used to.  Or worse, there was someone else.  There would be times when Alicia looked for Eli to arrive at the bakery but he did not come.  Each time she heard the tinkle of the little bell that hung above the door, she would look up expectantly, thinking that this time it was Eli, but she would be disappointed time and again.  Things were made worse when her parents would ask her if there was anything wrong, or ask her why had they not seen Eli recently?  When they asked these things, Alicia felt pain and anguish in her heart.  She wanted desperately to talk with Eli about her concerns but she was afraid of what he might say.  She decided it was better not to ask and to just let things run their course.  If she spoke to him, he might tell her that it was over and she did not want that.  It was better to have a small part of him, than nothing.

A small seed of doubt, once planted, will continue to grow in the mind and so it was for Alicia.  Slowly, imperceptibly, the seed took hold and sprouted shoots that began to clog her mind.  When Eli went for a walk on his own, Alicia started to think that he was sneaking off to see some other girl.  Sometimes, when he came back, she would check his jacket when he wasn't looking, searching for a clue, for evidence with which she could confront him.  She never found anything.  The doubt continued to grow in her mind.  Each Sunday after church, when he presented her with his token of love, Alicia felt reassured, but that reassurance quickly evaporated by the evening, when Eli would head off alone.  She asked herself what it was that she had done to cause this change within him?  She asked herself why he didn't want to spend as much time with her any more?  There was nothing Alicia could have done differently.  It was not the love of another girl that Alicia was fighting against, it was the love that Eli bore for his own soul and his own dreams, and if you fight against another persons deepest desire, there can be no victory.  Each person must embrace the desire of the other, help to nurture and support it.  To fight against it is futile and the result will be pain, loss and suffering for both.

So Alicia did not speak to Eli and she continued to suffer and to torment herself in silence.  She began to doubt herself.  She sat to brush out her hair in front of the mirror one morning, and as she looked at herself, she asked herself what was wrong with her that would turn the boy she loved away?  The answers that came back to her from her reflection were that she was unworthy of his love, that she must have done something wrong, and that she was ugly.  That morning, instead of feeling the joy in making herself look more beautiful for Eli as she had used to do, she sat weeping, feeling sad and wretched.  "I am ugly", "I am unworthy of being loved", she told herself as she wept.  And by reciting these phrases again and again, she made them the truth in her own mind.    

Eli began to notice the changes in Alicia.  He did not see the happiness in her that he once saw.  It seemed that her once amazing and beautiful smile had faded.  The laughter that they used to share was silenced.  They still walked hand in hand, they still shared kisses and they still talked, but Eli knew something was wrong.  One evening sitting down at the beach, he began to think on why Alicia seemed to be different and as soon as he thought about it, the answer came to him.  It was him.  Alicia loved him and he had grown distant from her.  Where once he had spent every free moment with her, now he spent more of that time alone and at the beach.  He felt torn between the person that he loved and the strong desire he felt in his chest and he knew that he had to let one them go.

One Sunday morning, Eli and Alicia sat beside the ocean, leaning up against their rock, enjoying their sweet breads.  Eli had presented Alicia with his token of love, just as he always had.  It was a peaceful day and they both sat in silence because they knew that sometimes words were not needed.  Each was lost in their own thoughts, each felt the presence of the other, and each felt the love of the other.  After some time, it was Eli that broke the silence.  "I'm going to go away Alicia", he said.  The words hung in the air and then slowly they drifted off in the breeze that carried them away, but their message had been delivered and their meaning sank into the heart and soul of Alicia, a knife sliding slowly through the fabric of her very being, tearing her up inside.  Alicia was silent for a few moments.

"I know", she said, "I've felt that you have been going away for some time now.  Something has changed in you.  I know that you love me, but there is something else.  Do you really have to go?"  She already knew the answer before the words were out of her mouth, but she had to ask.

"Yes.  All of my life, I have dreamed of travelling across the ocean.  For a while, I forgot my dream because I thought that loving you would be enough.  Now I understand that if I do not do the thing of which I have so long desired, then I will always carry a regret in my heart.  In the beginning, I'll be able to manage and live with the regret, but gradually it will grow.  Regret will turn into resentment and resentment will turn into bitterness.  And bitterness will eat me alive, from the inside out.  I want you to know that I love you and it is because I love you that I must go away."

Alicia tried hard not to cry but she could not help a tear from falling.  "Will you come back to me Eli, my love?"

Eli was silent.  He did not wish to speak an untruth to the girl that he loved.  "If our love is meant to be, then it will last.  True love, the kind that is found at the very centre of the universe cannot be broken.  I promise you this Alicia, that if my heart wills it, then I will return to you."

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Eli leaned on the railing of the ship and felt the wind blowing against his face.  The masts towered above him, the white sails unfurled and full of that same wind, pulling them ever on, across the vastness of the open sea.  Eli looked out across the wide expanse of ocean, across the rise and fall of the swells, towards the land he had left behind.  He whispered some words and with his breath, he blew them gently from the palm of his hand, so that the wind might catch them and carry them back to the girl that he loved.  "I'm coming home soon Alicia.  You are with me always because I carry you on this journey in my heart.  You are my love Alicia, you are my home."  And with that he turned away from the ocean and as he did so, he thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets.  There, in his left pocket, he discovered something he did not know he had.  His fingers enclosed around a small object and he pulled it out.  As he uncurled his fingers, there in the palm of his hand was the small pebble that he had given to Alicia the very first time they had sat and talked on the beach.  He smiled and at that moment he felt love and he felt peace in his heart.  "She gave me back the moon."

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