FOMO

I learned this term from a good friend Jackie, who has taught me a ton about surfing and loving freely.  It was when my friends Julia and Kelly were visiting for my birthday that I discovered the condition that I have suffered from for many many years!  Kelly, Julia and I had just gone for a long horse back ride down the beach and were returning to Coco Loco to drop off the horses when we ran across Jackie.  She asked what we had been up to that morning.  We returned the same question and she answered, “Dude we went wakeboarding this morning up and down the coast.”  All of a sudden that hot itchy panicky feeling rises in my throat and I have no words, I’m horrified that I missed wakeboarding and all I can think about is how amazing it sounds to be whipping up and down the beaches of Coco Loco with all my friends wakeboarding on surf boards screaming my head off, hair blowing in the wind……and then I finally come back to the present moment. Jackie says, “Dude, you just had a serious case of FOMO amiga.”  “What’s that?,” I ask. “Dude, Fear of Missing Out, don’t worry I suffer from it too.” She says.

Seriously, I have issues!  I have this fear of missing out on all the amazing things life has to offer.  Probably why I run around full-speed from sunset to sun down.  My mom was always telling me to just be present in the moment and stop racing ahead to the next event, but how can I when there are so many cool things out there to experience?  I’m doing better these days.  I’ve self medicated with yoga, meditation, and learning to play the guitar to calm the heck down and live in the moment.  It’s just so much more fulfilling to be in that one moment and disconnect from all that is happening around you.  With that being said, I think there is also a healthy amount of FOMO that drives me to make the most out of life.  It makes me who I am.  Running half marathons is half the physical challenge and half FOMO, knowing that I can’t die not having the experience of running one.  Low and behold I really liked it!  Just like surfing, I can't live this close to amazing surf beaches and leave this beautiful place not having surfed.  Again I’d like to attribute many of the things I do to FOMO, because I may never have tried it in the first place with out my mental condition.  Thank you Jackie for diagnosing me.

So I hope that I have instilled a bit of FOMO in my readers to seize the opportunities that come your way because you never know if it will present itself again.

Gypsy

Lately I’ve been feeling very free, independent, no attachments to anything.  I realize that I lead a few different lives down here, which almost allows me to float and feel as though there is nothing holding me to an agenda or commitment, unless I let it.  Last week when the volcano outside my city was spewing ash I took the liberty to travel around the country with a few different groups of people, engaging in whatever opportunity came my way.  I felt very much like a gypsy floating from one situation to another with no idea what the next day would hold.  I went from surfing the beaches down south, to the colonial city of Granada sipping cocktails by the pool with my friends Mandy and Jeff, to the northern mountains of Esteli to raft a canyon within a span of 5 days.  I cherish these backpacking experiences and the excitement of having the plan of no plan.  And this is coming form Ms. Type A plan everything in advance.

Granted there are some negatives to that as well-not feeling like I belong anywhere, or that no one really knows or cares where I am, and no one really knows all the faces of who Kate is down here.   Sometimes I crave the people that just know what I’m thinking or feeling with out a word being said. But for now I want to focus on the freedom, because I know that one day a family and a career may not allow me to ever be back in this place, right here, right now.

If any of you have been on Facebook you may have noticed the amount of photos taken by the beach, surfing or riding horses.  Fortunately my proximity and attachment to the beach community of Manazano 1 has helped me to reach this level of freedom.  I float between my work in Chinandega in the high schools and NGO Pro Mujer and then back to Manzano 1 to work with Waves of Hope and the jewelry ladies of Artesenia del Mar.  Some weekends I float on over to visit friends in different parts of the country to clear my mind and have a new experience, but I realize I’m doing that with less frequency as I have found my heavenly place in Manzano 1.

It’s been awesome learning to surf and the intensity the ocean brings up for me is amazing.  As a double water sign, I’ve always felt at home by the ocean.  I’ve been able to get back to the things that connect me to my childhood- the ocean and riding horses- literally riding horses on the beach almost puts me over the edge.  A Nicaraguan family that I live with brought a beautiful sorral quarter horse stallion to their beach house where I can run him up and down the coast.  Freedom is what I feel when we are running full speed through waves that splash up in my face while my hair whirls around my face.  It’s that feeling of completely letting go and trusting the beast beneath me, whatever it may be.  Yet it’s a two way street, he trusts that I would never ask him to do something dangerous and I trust him to do the same.  Sometimes the beast is a massive wave that closes in on my board, but then again the trust arises.  Horses are made to run, waves are made to crash, and it is up to us to decide how we react.  I would like to make the conclusion that one cannot feel true freedom until they trust in themselves to let go, be a gypsy, at least just a little bit.