Tag: relocating

The spirit of Aloooooooha!!

On By Jenni C.In Hawaii, Life, Moving, New York, Paradise, random, Relocation, Self Discovery, self help, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

In Hawaii there is an overwhelming sense of the spirit of Aloha!! It is something that can be compared to a warmth of kindness that is rarely experienced on the mainland. Even the south can take notes! It comes with a feeling a gratitude, a warming smile, a community feeling, that embodies the essence of natural kindness. Aloha comes with a peaceful feeling that says, yes you are important to me, and I care about you my friend.

I write this to say, that in Hawaii I have experienced some things that I have never felt in New York. Let me start with this, for one the Executive Vice President of the company I work for actually knows my name! Small feature, I don’t think so. I have worked at places where I don’t even think my own direct supervisor knows my name. In addition to that she always greets with a warm mother like type hug, and a friendly welcoming of,  Hello Jennifer! Wow was I impressed the first time this occurred. A hug and smile from the Vice President. I must admit that I was feeling a little rude inside because I did not know the proper way to act, or how to approach this instance. I did give a hug back in return, I just left with the feeling that mine was not good enough to embrace the Aloha!

Another example of this is when we have pot lucks at work due to somebody moving on to a new job. Before everyone starts to eat, we gather in a circle and a small prayer of sorts or blessing is said. No separation of church and state here. And again the VP shows up with her big smile, and also brings a dish to share. Time is made for employees to enjoy each other, and laugh together. Co workers are aware of the joys and struggles in each others lives, and judgment is left out of the process. It is an environment where it is Ok to just be who you are, and still put your best foot forward.

At a meeting I had attended, before it began a traditional Hawaiian song was sung to start off the meeting. Sorry I forget what it is called, but it was a song like no other. The room was still as this woman’s voice called the meeting to order though her gift of song. It was a magical moment, that made it feel like we were all standing by the ocean watching the waves in peace.

So from Hawaii I am sending a warm sense of Aloha! Be kind today. Be kind to a stranger, to family, to friends. A smile will take you a long way, and a smile towards someone else will always bring brightness into their day!!!

1 year already!!!!

On By Jenni C.In Fears, Finding meaning, Hawaii, Life, Moving, New York, Paradise, random, Relocation, Self DiscoveryLeave a comment

Its funny how life just keep changes and you never know where you will end up, or what is going to happen next. Life just happens, we can make plans sure, but there it is not certain that our plans will work. Life happens when it wants, on its own terms. If you are a believer in God, which I am, I will say God says when life happens. God makes his plans for us, and it works, it always works. We may have our own plans, but God’s plans will always prevail.  So life, is funny, uncertain, forever changing, and full of surprises, but it always happens.

So it has been one year since I have been in Hawaii, and it is a part of my life that I could not have planned for, did not predict, and truly did not expect. But it happened, and it worked. The years go by so fast, and I feel like it was just yesterday that I got off the plane and landed at the Honolulu airport. I still remember the morning I left New York it was 13 degrees, and freezing cold. I cried on the plane at the thought of the boy and friends  I was leaving behind, and just slept until I landed in LAX to switch planes.  In Honolulu it was 80 degrees and I spent my first night alone in a Waikiki hotel. Not feeling scared, but feeling ready for change and empowered to finally be in control of my life!

The last year has been forever changing, its been full of life, full of breath, its been NEW!! And for me it has been great! I will admit yes I have had bad days, I have felt times of uncertainty, the creeping of loneliness, wanting to hug my mommy, wanting to laugh with my best friends, and yes even wanting to argue with my little sister.  But for each passing bad moment, I remember that God gave me the opportunity to live my own life. To feel like I have a purpose, and to feel like I am strong enough to keep going because I will have an abundance of good days ahead.

So as today marks the one year mark of my Hawaiian adventure, I still feel strong, I feel whole, I feel like whatever challenge life has for me, I will be able to conquer it. I feel like I know myself better than I ever have before, and I love who I am! I am what makes me special, and having the chance to live life makes me more ready to see whats next!

When will I leave Hawaii, ummm not really too sure about that yet. But for right now I will continue to enjoy the beauty and culture of islands, enjoy the people, and have fun each day, living my life with no regrets!!!!

Taking a Time Out!!!

On By Jenni C.In dating, Finding meaning, Hawaii, Life, men, Moving, New York, random, relationships, Relocation, Self Discovery, self help, single girl, Travel, Uncategorized, VacationLeave a comment

I am calling time out! …..Time out!

I feel the need to take a time out and rest on the bench. I don’t want to play. I just decided that I don’t want to play anymore. Playing “the game”, the dating game is a lot more work than I thought. I have never been good at games anyway. Not monopoly, spades, bingo, or uno. I have never been good at playing, and I seem to not win. So how did I get stuck in the middle of this dating game, when I never wanted to play in the first place!

As I progress in playing this game  I will honestly say I am not really good at it, but I do think that I have a pretty good team. I have a starting line up that keeps me busy, and individually each of my 5 starters know their position, as they each meet a different need for me. But even with a strong starting line up, I feel like I am missing that Kobe or Lebron who will just dominate the game. You know the franchise player who will take over, be able to play every position, and play it with confidence. He will never need rest, and will be honored to play the entire time without needing a sub to fill in.  Basically that one guy who meets my needs so well that I don’t have to look to fill the other 4 positions because he has them all on lock. He knows when to move, how to move, and where to go to make things happen. If I just had a Kobe or Lebron, I wouldn’t need players for the other positions, and would no longer need to look back for someone else to make a play.

I have the movie guy, the guy with the great conversation and intellectual stimulation, the one who makes me laugh, the one who likes adventure and outdoor activities, and the one who I can just sit home and chill with. Sounds great huh, but why can’t they all be encompassed into just one person. That one IT guy who makes me laugh, has great conversation, likes to watch movies, likes to sit home and relax, and also like to experience the outdoors and adventure. I know there has to be a man out there who has all of these qualities, and hopefully I can find him so I can retire from this game with a championship ring.

In addition to my rotational starting line up,  I would say that I have the best sixth man in the game. He would make Ben Gordon and Jason Terry jealous with his sixth man abilities.  My sixth man is always ready to come off the bench and fill in whenever one of my starters starts to act up. He would surely be the top candidate for the sixth man of the year award in the dating game (if there was one). He is down to play any position, always ready when I need him, and he doesn’t need time to warm up. On  someone’s else team he would truly be a starter, maybe even the MVP. He would be the Kobe of their team.  However, on my team I can only bring him off the bench, and no matter how good he is at playing his position, he will never reach the starting line up.

But even with a fully stacked team,  a strong rotation of players, I feel like I need a time out from this game. This team doesn’t seem to be working as well as it once did. It may be time to make some trades, and recruit  new free agents. Yet, that still takes work, a lot of work. It’s the starting over, the getting to know him, seeing where he is going to fit in. Will he be willing to play any position I put him at? But I will secretly be hoping that he is the Kobe that I am looking for, so I can cut the rest of the team from my roster. I have no problem making cuts for a star player. But it seems the stars are in rare form,  and I have to fill in the gaps somehow.

When I was in a long term relationship with my ex,  I would look at my  BFF Dana and be jealous of her single girl adventures. She always had a new story about a new guy. I would think “wow that must be fun”!! New men, new experiences, not having anyone to answer to, and being able to tell him to leave when he pisses you off. Yeah I thought that would be fun.

Now I know better. It’s not as fun as it looked from inside the window of a relationship.  As TO said about that girl on his show,  I am a “relationshipper”. I like relationships. I like commitments. I like seeing just one guy day after day. I want one person to be the movie guy, the dinner guy, and be there for everything else I need guy. Together the two of us can be a team. We are both the stars of each others team, and there will be no bench to look to when things get complicated. He will be the one I pass the ball to, and he passes it back to me. It works. We win together, we lose together, and we play the whole game together.

But until then, I think I’ll just take a twenty second time out!

Can I please live as a Beach Bum??????

On By Jenni C.In Fears, Finding meaning, Hawaii, Life, Moving, New York, Paradise, random, Relocation, Self Discovery, self help, single girl, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I have a confession to make: I must admit, secretly I want to be a beach bum. A good old fashioned beach bum, I do not feel like doing  a damn thing. I want to be able to be on a 24/7 relaxation high. I want to fit into the culture of Hawaii, surfing at the beach, cruising around the island, sitting back and drinking a beer, and listening to the Jawaiian music (yeah Jamaican regaee + Hawaiian regaee= Jawaiian).  I want to feel like that is all life is about, no worries, no stress, I can just stay here and forget that the mainland exist. Forget that I have a passion to get the most out of life, forget that I have drive to sit at the head of the table and run the meeting, forget that I want to be known for my accomplishments, and forget that I strive to be better than I was the day before. Yeah I just want to forget all of that and just be a beach bum.

I can’t seem to kick that damn NY edge. You know the NY EDGE! That faced paced, go getter, step on anyone’s toes attitude. The feeling of always needing to be on that upward climb, because if your not climbing up, your gonna get stepped on and slapped down by that person who was below you. In NY people are on the move all of the time! And boy are they moving fast! Everyone has a hustle, and that hustle better be on point! People are rarely sleeping, and if you are feeling stressed, at least you know that you are still alive. Yeah I still have that damn NY edge in me! And that edge makes me stand out here in Hawaii. Man, I just want to be a beach bum!!!

At work co-workers used to say, why do you work so hard, your making us look bad. Are you kidding me? Work hard? We never had to show up and just hand in some papers! Usually if someone at work has a request, I have been trained all too well to get it done as soon as possible. In NY if it wasn’t done you start to get what I like to call hate emails, then you can’t sleep when you get home due to anxious, over obsessive thoughts of getting fired. In Hawaii, its ok, do it whenever you get a chance, even if it is a week later and you had to be asked 3-4 times, its ok.

Another person who was a potential dating prospect asked, “Why do you have so much ambition”? WHATTTTT? Are you kidding me? Why have ambition? Why not? I have been trained oh so well by my NY lifestyle that without ambition, where are you going in life? Life is no fun standing still as an observer, it will just keep moving while you are watching. But hey maybe that is only in NY!! So after that question, needless to say homeboy was no longer a dating prospect. He did not understand the necessity of ambition in life. However if I am a beach bum I will not need that drive and ambition anymore right? I can just go to the beach and drink Mai tai’s. Since life moves slow in Hawaii anyway I won’t notice it passing me by, and I will fit right in. I just want to be a beach bum!!!

When I tell people outside of my work that I have my master’s degree from NYU, they look at me like I am on the same level as President Obama (no seriously), and men look like they have they just found a pot of gold. Eyes light up, and all of a sudden I become the most interesting girl they have ever met. It is a level of success that many people may not reach. However, when I was in NY I kept feeling like that wasn’t good enough. I needed to get better, strive for more, aim higher, and get that Ph.D. In the big city, I only had a very little amount of time to appreciate my accomplishments. With the next breath comes: What’s next? How do I top this? And how do I do better? In Hawaii it is good enough, and I will be a highly educated beach bum!!! I will be married to a local in no time!!!

Someday’s the feeling is, what’s the point? Why do I need to strive for more, and keep pushing to get to that next level when I am perfectly fine right here? The end result of life is all the same. We die. So who is really going to care at the end if I died as a beach bum, or a well renowned professional Psychologist who improved the behaviors of at risk youth? Does it even matter? Not really sure, I guess it is where my sense of  happiness comes from is what really counts. So will I really be happy as a beach bum? Probably not! I was raised with that NY drive. To have the go getter, do better, attitude seems innate. It is a part of my life, and just because I decided to leave the big city, my NY self came right along with me. But oh really, some days I just want to say forget this doing better, I am hitting the beach and becoming a bum!

In recent conversations with a friend I told him that I wanted to be a beach bum. His response: that is not an option. What!!! Why don’t I get that option? It seems like everyone else on this island gets that option, and they are having a great, carefree time!  I guess I do have the option. Hey no one is stopping me, and no one will come grab me up, and put me on a plane back to the mainland.  But anyone who really knows me would say, that me as a beach bum would be a waste of really great potential. I really do have the ability to do big things in life! (no really I do!!).

So that settles it, I won’t be a beach bum, I’ll just live the life of a couple days out of the month to taste it, and then I will let the NY in me come out and do its own thing to achieve greater success!!!

Facing Fears

On By Jenni C.In Fears, Finding meaning, Hawaii, Life, Moving, random, Relocation, Self Discovery, self help, single girl, Uncategorized1 Comment

-“Fear is like a disease, if you don’t treat it, it will eat you up”

People always tell me that I am so brave since I just picked up and moved to Hawaii. They like to say “wow you didn’t know anyone, no friends, no family” and my response is always “nope”. I figure where there are people, someone will eventually become my friend. I may be a bit shy at times, but I am in no way anti social (sometimes I find myself running off at the mouth a bit too much!!!) So I was never worried about making friends, and eventually if your friends are close enough to you, they become like family. So I felt like if that was all I needed to live somewhere then, hey I was all set, and all my bases were covered. Moving to a new place was never a fear of mine, being bored and alone does not scare me either, I am pretty comfortable with me, and by the way, I am great company! It’s those past fears that continue to scare me, the same fears that I have had in NY, the same things that make me worry and stay up all night. Apparently for those fears there is no escaping from, and the more I try to forget that I was once afraid of theses things, the more I feel like they have followed me. And now it is time to turn around, stare them down with the black girl stank attitude, and stand up to what has scared me for most of my life. The time has come, I will yell loud to the highest point of earth and say I AM NOT AFRAID ANYMORE!!!!!

Well what is it that is scaring me so much? Let me give you some idea. To start I have always been afraid of the dark (yes I have been told by many people that there is nothing to be afraid of in the dark, and that is strange). But hey, darkness still scares me, espically when I am alone. I fear my not getting into a doctorate program ever in life, well its more like I am so afraid to ask people to write me a letter of recommendation. I wish I could just skip that part. I guess the fear is of a NO, so my fear is that I don’t like rejection! Yes I said it, rejection scares the crap out of me. I know “No’s” are a part of life, but i just like the word “Yes” so much better. So the thought of a professor telling me that NO, in their nice professor like way mind you, makes me too scared to ask, and to send a basic two line email. Yes how sad is that. I am afraid that my life won’t turn out the way I want it to, I fear not knowing next steps, not making right decisions, and not having answers to my own questions. My biggest fear since I could remember the feeling of being afraid is that my mother will end up dying. Now I know parents die, and as you get older you prepare yourself for that possibility, well not really prepare, but understand that death is a part of life. But I worry about my mother, worry that she is not taking care of herself, and that she won’t live to see me get married, or take care of my children. Yes I did say take care of my children! (well maybe on the weekends)!

I know for my fears are out of my control. So how do I face them? I don’t want them following me around anymore! I want to be done with them. I thought I would leave them in NY, but somehow they got in my suitcase, got on the plane with me and now live in Hawaii. Well I hope they have had their share of fun on this trip, because I am letting them go. Dropping them off, and kicking them into the middle of the ocean. I AM NOT AFRAID ANYMORE!!!! and  I decided a long time ago that I want to live, and now I want to live without fear. SO today is MY DAY, take back control of MY life, and just face the world as is, without being afraid. If I am really so brave as everyone says, I think its time for me to believe it. Enjoy the time that I have now with my friends, and family, and just live my life as is. Without worry about what will happen and focus on what is happening right now!

Before I came here a friend asked me what was I running from…my response to her was I am not running I am growing. I now realize I may have been running from everything that I was afraid of, hoping it would not find me ever again. But as I recognize the role the fears play in my life, and that I can be the sole person to overcome them, Yup I feel like am growing to a new level! One that cannot be matched by any fear that will try to take me down.

Ahhhhhh! Dating Sucks

On By Jenni C.In Finding meaning, Hawaii, Life, men, Moving, New York, Paradise, random, relationships, Relocation, Self Discovery, single girl, Travel, Uncategorized, VacationLeave a comment

Since I am writing as the single girl who moved from NY to Hawaii I will take this opportunity to let you in a little on my dating life. Ok now before you get your hopes up and become utterly excited, please note that it is really not that exciting. I must admit that it is a bit interesting at times because for much of my life I have been the “anti dater” and just had long term relationships with guys who just happen to one day become my boyfriend. I know you are probably thinking, hey how did she have boyfriends without dating? Well I am still trying to figure that one out too, it was simple one day I met a guy we clicked,  and the next day (or a few weeks of constant interactions later)  he was my boyfriend, and we were in an exclusive relationship. Yes this has worked twice in my life, and has taken up much of my twenties, and I have no regrets about either one. Yes it sounds strange and conveniently simple, but hey it was that easy! Anyway, now I am single, so we see how those turned out! (No really I had good times no hard feelings) But since I live on the notion that everything happens for a reason,  today I can write to you as the single girl who traveled from NY to Hawaii, and living life by learning about me!

So back to  this dating thing, now I am not one to follow “rules” of dating. One of my favorite movies is “How to lose a guy in 10 days”, so maybe that will tell you something about me. I do not like going on hundreds of dates with different men, let’s be real some of them are just strange, socially inept, or just plain cheap. Side note to all men over the age of 23: fast food and a DVD at your house or mine is NOT a good first date!  Now back to me!  Because I am lazy, and I don’t feel like dealing with a lot of different people. Every first date is like a rerun of a bad movie with a different title. You always go through the same questions, trying to get to know someone, on the hopes that this guy actually has that IT factor that I am looking for only to find out that by the end of the night after I am done pretending to like you, I have to dodge my way out of him trying to kiss me. Ok maybe not all the time, but most of it. I hate to admit it but I have tried eharmony and Craigslist looking for the all elusive Mr. Right, yeah I am still here writing as the single girl in Hawaii, so what does that say about that! I must admit that I have met some good guys, nice friends, but not the man that is worthy enough to call me his girl or wife for that matter.

The dating scene in Hawaii is so different from NY, from what my experience has been there are two types of men, Military and Local. Yes ladies feel free to choose, you can either have a man who is protecting and serving our country through one of the branches of the military, or a local Hawaiian guy, who is probably very nice, and a great surfer, but not really a fan of the mainland. Oh and let me not forget there are the men who just picked up and decided to move to Hawaii one day, just like myself for various reasons, but I haven’t dated them ( I think they may be a little too much like me, all over the place and has nomadic like tendencies!). Now both types of men are nice guys so don’t get me wrong here.

Military men appear like they have it all together, and seem to be financially stable, although recently a friend told me I was wrong about that one. The financial part that is. Before I moved here I swore all men in the military were just plain crazy, and I wouldn’t give them a second look. But living in Hawaii I have met plenty from all branches ( literally all of the branches), and have had a lot of fun with them. Now that does not mean sexual fun, but just good old fashioned dating and taking me back home. For real, I am serious!!! People still do that you know.  Oh and if you meet a Black or Hispanic man, he is probably in the military, or has a military past. The number one problem why I have issues with ever being married to a military man is because they are not home a lot of the time!!! I do tilt my hat and commend military wives, but who in the world wants a husband that can be deployed for months at a time, and can just be told that you have to relocate out of the blue. Nope not me, when I move I like it to be by choice, and I DO NOT intend to get married only to have to still sleep alone at night!!! Sorry people, but that sucks!!! Hate me if you like, the views and opinions of this blog are solely mine!

Now the local guys, oh they are great, always give you a great laugh. Will teach you words that no one will ever know on the mainland, and fill you up with rice and macaroni salad. No need to ever go to a gym again! They will show you the land of Hawaii, and always have a very adorable smile. The family will love you, and fill you up on rice and macaroni salad daily. The only thing is they probably love living in Hawaii and would not think of leaving, so I can’t marry them either, because although I love the island, I think I must return to the stress of reality one day, right??? Maybe. But I like the option.

So that leaves me with still dating these men, going out to great restaurants, learning about the islands, and still keeping my single girl swag on the side. So for right now, hey i’m doing alright.  🙂