Finding the Light

“I climbed mountains, swam oceans,

and ran through forests

just to reach the moon

but when I finally found the light

it was inside of me.”

Sabina Laura

It’s no secret that Hawai’i is the most expensive state in the U.S. With a median sale price of $1,000,000 in O’ahu’s housing market, a median household income ranging from $90,000 to $95,000, and a minimum wage of $14 per hour, things can be tough for some of us.

            For myself, it’s been a little rough. I’ve had to work two jobs for the last four months I’ve been on the island, almost every single day, and even then that’s just skirting by. I tried not to think of what may become of me should something terrible have happened that would leave my health unable to get through my shifts.

            Four months.

            Four months of working nonstop, clocking in, clocking out, using free time to explore, write, create videos and photographs… only spending a few hours to myself in my home before going to bed, and even then, the time was usually eaten away by necessities like cooking and laundry. Four months of exhaustion, delusional happiness, and being grateful every day I worked for being able to support myself no matter how tiring the scheduling became or how the days began to bleed together. I didn’t dare speak negatively about it, for the risk of things falling apart—like the time my car was towed after I walked away from the laundromat to get some shrimp tacos, leaving me deserted in Waikiki in the dark with a dying phone battery. After all, there’s a price to pay for Paradise. This was what I wanted, the freedom to write and create in one of the most beautiful places in the world, surely I knew there’d be no freedom from a grueling check to check cycle, at least not at the beginning. Four months of this.

            But only four months, nonetheless. Only four months after taking the biggest risk of my life to move over the Pacific Ocean to an island I’ve never been to where I knew no one, in the most expensive state in the country, the unthinkable dice roll in the gambles of signing a lease on an apartment and buying a used car remotely without seeing either in person, the grind of putting in sixty-five to seventy-five hours weekly into two jobs just to get by, working almost every single day on top of building a life off my passions, I landed a salaried management position that earns enough to make it comfortably and quit my other job.

            This happenstance opens opportunities I did not see coming for some time in the foreseeable future, like having the flexibility to put deeper focus into my writing and Youtube channel; to explore this side of the world; to fulfill the promises I made to myself as a lonely child trying to survive the statistics; to live the freedom of the last few years of my twenties the way I always wanted to. All while living in one of the most beautiful, spiritual, and inspiring places on Earth.

            To say I am proud of myself is an understatement. I never knew all I was truly capable of until I left the corner of the world I’d known for so long and set off into new beginnings on my own. My twenty-seventh trip around the sun is approaching, and it is the start of everything I yearned for on so many sleepless nights. This may be the most exceptional start to a year (2024) I have ever experienced.

            This is not a brag or a show-off. This is proof. This is the reality of relentless consistency, dominating sheer will, unwavering tunnel vision, and getting one percent better every single day. This is the power of believing in yourself regardless of what anybody else thinks or says, and the repercussions of the Universe watching your random acts of kindness and what you give back to the world, paving a path for the odds to be in your favor.

            Don’t listen to the energy vampires and the ones that couldn’t do it for themselves. Do not ever let anybody tell you that you cannot, that the grass is not greener, or that you’re incapable of achievement. You can absolutely do anything you set your mind to, so long as the burning desire is there. I knew this, and I made it a goal to prove it.

            When I first spoke of moving to Hawai’i, people laughed and scoffed at the idea. I know there are still some out there secretly hoping I’ll fail. They told me to my face that I would struggle, that they wouldn’t want me here, that I wouldn’t make it, that I’d be back in the Midwest after just a few months. I know it’s unkind, but I’ve had it rough in the past, I’ve had nasty things said to me and about me and I’ve only managed to keep a very small circle of people, and I sincerely hope that how well things are going for me in this new life is sickening to the people that always doubted me. I hope they recoil at my wins, that they make excuses for how I’m making my dreams come true because I couldn’t possibly be capable of doing the things I’m doing in front of their slimy faces. I hope their bitterness makes them physically ill, for the hatred they have of me for doing more with less. But mostly, I hope they can let it go eventually, and they can find happiness of their own.

            One of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made in this life is the one to stop having even the remotest of cares of what any other soul thinks of me besides my own. It’s relief. It’s exhilaration. It’s euphoria.

            I’m in my late twenties, I don’t have a degree (yet), I don’t have a fancy career (though this could turn into one if it weren’t for my plans as a writer), I’m not wealthy, I don’t own a home, I’m unmarried, and I’m childless. And I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve begun to take risks, to write, make videos, take photographs, and share with the world as if nobody I know personally is even looking my way. It’s launched me into a part of my life I feared I wouldn’t see for another couple of decades, just to be scorned and pointed at for having a “mid-life crisis,” whatever that means. It’s paved a path for genuine relationships, old friendships to hold dear and new friendships I never would have found had I continued playing it safe.

            For the first time ever, I’m most grateful to have hung onto the strangeness I suppressed for so long. This weird little life I’ve created is everything I’ve ever wanted and more, and I have zero concern for what anybody thinks of any of it. It’s the purest form of freedom I’ve ever experienced. Everyone deserves this sense of fulfillment, and it’s only the first small peak of many to be climbed.

            I had searched for this light my entire life, this light that glows ember in the dawn and silver in the night. It guides me, soothes me, and it adrenalizes me when necessary. It’s a light I thought I’d find here in Hawai’i, and though it did take coming here to find it, the light was never physically here. It was always within me, lying dormant and waiting patiently for its time to shine.

            I turn twenty-seven in fourteen days. This is the entrance into the prime of my life, the pathway lit up by the light of my soul, and I am the happiest woman alive to listen to it and follow it and see where it takes me.