“Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs”

The Five Man Electrical Band is famous for the familiar tune, Signs.  Admittedly, I can’t say that I know much about the lyrics themselves or their meaning, so I can’t say if the song fits rightfully into this post or not, but certainly the quoted line in my title does.

As we presently vacation on the beautiful island of Maui, I am not only in awe of the scenery but also of the feel here.  The island feel, if you will.  I have written before about how much my husband and I love Hawaii, the reason we come each year, yet every visit continues to amaze us with the many new, often profound things that it offers, including the stories of the people here.  This is where the word ‘sign’ comes into play…

Yesterday, one of the management company employees checked in to see how we were enjoying our stay–a nice touch, I must say.  After leaving us with some extra, freshly laundered bath and hand towels, we chatted with her for a short bit.  In the fifteen or twenty minutes that she was here, we learned that she just up and plucked herself from her upside down world on the main land and decided to call Maui home, almost two years ago this fall.  Imagine!  Just. Like. That.  All on her own.  Sadly, her dad died, her dog died and she divorced–all in the same year.  That was enough to prompt her to sit back and take inventory of her life, and what better place to do so than a vacation in the idyllic South Pacific.  And so, the story goes that she was to visit for a month to re-evaluate her life and purpose as well as to ‘get away from it all’.  By now, I am sure that you can guess what happened next.  Indeed, at the end of her stay, she put her house in Reno up for sale and began packing up her things.  But, what you don’t know is that aside from her immediate love of this place, she felt that the Universe had provided her with a sign–the exact one that she needed to make the Solitary, steadfast decision to pick up and move, to start over again.

Days before she was to return home, she hit the beach only to find a huge heart made of coral directly in front of her path and being that hearts are her ‘thing’, that was all of the confirmation that she needed to finalize the plans she had been newly dwelling on.  Two months later, she found herself living in a long-term rental just up the street from our condo building, where she still resides today.  Was it a flat-out, easy decision for her to make?   No, it wasn’t.  Not at all.  Moving to Hawaii meant leaving behind her two grown children and grandchildren, one of whom she helped look after daily from the ages of two to eight.  She misses him dearly, as well as her new grandson and obviously the feelings are mutual, so much so that her daughter was going to move here as well; however, circumstances dictated otherwise, as does happen in life.  Of course, they visit back and forth, but it isn’t the same.  Nonetheless, these are the kind of sacrifices that we are all faced with when looking at what is really best for us, as so often we do we is best for others, especially as women.

Like others living elsewhere in the world, she admits that she does slip into the daily thralls of life, even here in paradise, but her “I am on Island Time” sign, front and center in her kitchen, helps her to stay grounded in why she gave up what she did to live the life she was meant to live.  For now.  After all, who knows what other signs are out there awaiting her, or you, or me?  Guess we’ll just have to wait and see:-).  Until then, the message in it for all of us is to keep our hearts, minds and eyes open to what could be, as often what we desire is right in front of us.

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