In November 2016, i had this urge to go to Cuba.

The feeling intensified as i moved a few months into February 2017. I remember because i told my father about it. At the time i was still dating Jun, who wanted to move to Melbourne.

My dad: “Wait a minute… so you want to go to Cuba, and Jun wants to go to Melbourne?”
Me: …  yup…
Daddy: … *sighs and mutters ‘…stupid girl…’ * …

I had to push away this expectation of what my parents think is best for me. They’re probably freaking out like WHY IS OUR DAUGHTER LIKE THIS. WHAT DID WE DO WRONG!?

The realisation that your child will most probably end up nothing like you (or perhaps, so much like you but an evolved version, which is the whole point of procreating isn’t it) startles and scares me too. I dread thinking what my child would be like, should i end up having one. They will probably drive me to my wits’ end.

So. Cuba.

It enamoured me because all these signs would pop up in my space from Nov 2016.
While flipping through channels or magazines.
In a conversation at a dinner table with newly-met people.
Bang right in the middle of a page of a book i opened randomly.
On signboards. (turned out to be ‘cuba uber’ haha)

I believe there is no such thing as coincidence.

When i spent time alone in Ubud in July 2017, i ended up sharing a table in a restaurant with a Polish girl who started talking about Cuba. I sat there and soaked it in, without telling her my intention to go there, till she was finished. When i finally did confide in her my dream to get myself there someday, she leaned over the table towards me in all seriousness and said, “If Cuba is calling, you have to go.”

A few months ago, i told Cammy about how i was planning to sell one apartment, sell my car, withdraw my EPF Account 2 money – pay off some debts, invest some, and take the rest to travel.
Cammy gasped, “Joyce Wong! Are you taking your savings to go to Cuba!?

I told her i had nothing to lose. I don’t have children, i’m single, if this is not the time to go, then when!? I don’t feel like the work i do right now is my precise calling. I mean, come on, coordinating people for events and work is a skill i have mastered, but when i found myself chasing after some actress who was in the middle of the forest because she had no reception while everyone was freaking out, i sat with my phone calmly in my palm and quietly thought to myself, “This cannot be my life’s calling.”

Even i don’t know what my life’s calling is. But with all the learnings i’ve picked up from the past coupla years – my conscience about mass population, the environment, wastage of energy, how we’re wiping the planet clean, how Mother Earth will recycle us anyway in 200 years (if we’re lucky, 100 if we’re not), human technology on how to live outside the planet, how we’re going to evolve our consciousness light years far away from us in the future, how people are raising their own vibrations as a conscious collective race, acceptance on who we are as a people [< wow yes, this is what i ponder on in my free time and go into loops of sullenness then ecstasy when i realise that life is to be LIVED.] – i know that whatever i do in the future has to contribute to my beliefs, and equally contribute to the planet and its species.

I have spent the past 13 years of my life working through various jobs and careers that i’m happy with… but they’re all the past now. My future interests me a whole lot more.

Another friend wanted to borrow my laptop to show me something online, and saw a tab opened for flights to Cuba.
“Are you searching up flights to Cuba?!”
“Just seeing what my options are…”
“You know, I’m reading a book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck… i think they should include you!”

All my closest friends think i am absolutely crazy (what else is new…). But Cuba fascinates me.

For one, did you know that Cuba has the highest percentage of doctors and nurses coming from a country, than anywhere else in the world? Their #1 energy = healing. How interesting! And of course, the absolute lack of internet there. Maybe i subconsciously want to be disconnected from every person and thing i’ve grown up familiar with.

When i played with the globe i have in my living room, i noticed that Cuba was almost on the other side of the planet from Malaysia. It would be the furthest i’ve placed my physical body elsewhere, ever. I believe that when we travel to new places, our bodies picks up the different energies from those new grids, and to think i’m going to *PLOOP!* place myself on the other side of where i’ve spent most of my life? Imagine what shifts and changes that will do to ME!

I found a piece of private writing from middle of last year, noting that if i were to happen to die in 2 years’ time – my ultimate regret before i passed on to the next stage would be, “I WISH I WENT TO CUBA!”

Life as a human being on this planet is so short in retrospect of the entire span of our existence here on Earth… the whole planet is my home and playground, i want to venture out and play more! I want to learn how other people operate, how they think, how they live. I’m sure we’ll have lots of information to exchange with each other..!

Yesterday, i admitted my future plan to my Aunt G in London via email… to travel to London and Bologna (for a wedding), head to the States, then make my way down through Mexico and maybe Peru, then end up in Cuba. I got a hurried reply that she would respond soon, and i braced myself for a telling-off on how irresponsible i am being as an adult with money. Instead of that, she said she was proud of me which took me by surprise (but who knows what she’ll say later… #stillbracingself).

At the end of the day, i am an adult so i will do what i want. I know everyone will be pretty worried about how safe i will be, and how i will turn out in the future but… i have this very good feeling about a new adventure. Like i said, it’s a calling right? How can one explain a calling in mere human words, when it’s a knowing and tug in the inner depths of your being?

It’s the kind of feeling that wakes my insides up,
and jostles my heart into faster excited beats,
with the wonderous lure of the unknown…

I’ve had so many places call to me to spend more time there in the past decade, but i didn’t always listen to my heart – San Francisco, India, Seoul, Peru…

Think to yourself, where has called you in the past or now, which you may be pushing to the recesses of your mind?

xx

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