Reflection & Visioning - #EffinPriceless

As we wind down to the last few days of 2017, I am reflecting on the path I've walked in this past year.

It has been a year. 

2016 was a doozy to deal with in regards to personal, political and worldwide transitions.  As I entered 2017, I was determined to chart a new course because life is so short - so valuable - and when we blink it is gone.  The years are passing faster and faster.  But I wanted the moments to count.
​
"The Overhaul" - that's what one of my besties called it.  The moment when you know you have to change everything about your life - all at once - to move forward.  It may require you to shift your living space, your friendships, your lifestyle, your employment, your environment.  It may even take you some time, right? But it's really a shift inside of YOU.   You have to change for real change to happen. 

So I shifted.

In January, I took the travel money I'd saved for a year (with no particular designation in mind) and spent it on a cruise for me and my two daughters..  The experience was #EffinPriceless. 
I will preface this to say I am not a fan of cruises (and this was my first one), but I SO enjoyed the ability to plan a family trip easily and effortlessly, to not have to worry about food and to get off that damn ship!  When we got off we

*Paddle boarded in Key West (a first, gratefully before this years hurricane)
*Touched sea animals that looked like excrement (a first)
*Almost barfed on a rocky sea trip to Tulum to see the ruins (a first)
*Literally jumped off a cliff into a Mexican cenote and let the fish eat my toes (yet another first)
*and ate food made by local people. 

The excursions were definite highlights, but eating exotic foods and watching my daughters enjoy the water activities, food and dance on stage with performers was quite entertaining. 

As we ended our trip to Mexico, another black cruiser with her husband pulled my two daughters to the side and told them how grateful they should be to be here with their mother, jumping off cliffs, doing cool stuff.... everyone does not have the opportunity to do so.

That made me smile and she was right. 

It also reminded me of the privilege we have to breathe life at this very moment.  Money comes and goes, it can be acquired and lost.  But doing the things you want to do with your life and spending the time with those who you value most is what this is really all about. That is a privilege that we often forget about as we go, go, go.  
​
The privilege lives between the Reflection & the Visioning because that is when you start to live in The Moment....which is #EffinPriceless.