by Liz Sinclair

Created on: September 25, 2009

A Reason to Go

When I decided to take a year off from my straight-and-narrow life in Melbourne and volunteer in Indonesia, I bought a round-the-world ticket so I could stop and see friends and family on the way. I almost called Qantas twice the last week to cancel my ticket. Once, I lifted the receiver and dialed the number before hanging up. But I've got this Depression-era hang-up about waste that I inherited from my parents. If I've paid good money for an airline ticket, I'm morally bound to use it. So I set off for my first stop, the USA, which I'd left about ten years before.

I spent two months in Colorado, where I lived for eleven years, connecting with old friends, the friends of my twenties, the ones who knew me longest and best. The ones who could be trusted to tell me when I was attempting to delude myself. The ones who knew my heart and held it gently, but spoke to it firmly when needed. They were all excited about my great adventure. I took that as a good sign.

My best friend, Francesca, dragged me to see her favorite psychic, The Celtic Lady, at the Boulder Creek Festival.

"Are you going traveling?" the woman inquired.

"Why?" I asked.

"I see you going far, over vast expanses of water."

"I'm going to Indonesia," I told her, "to Bali." Indonesia is a watery archipelago.

She took hold of my hand and closed her eyes. After a minute, she opened them and said, "You'll write a book and find your partner in Bali."

"I don't think so," I said, "I don't write books,"

"Well, you will," she said. "And it will be the first one. There will be others. Do you want me to tell you about your future partner?"

She paused. "He works with his hands. A healer, perhaps. Yes, I think he may be a doctor. Are you going to work for a hospital?"

I was, in fact, on my way to volunteer as a grant writer for a birthing centre for poor women.

In the past few years, I'd had a series of relationships that didn't go anywhere. They were characterized by my realizing that I'd chosen rashly, jumped too soon into being part of a couple, and hadn't taken the time to get to know the man first. I was becoming resigned to couplings that ended, leaving me progressively less devastated, but increasingly more cynical about men and relationships.

"Tell me more about this book, " I said.

I bought a fridge magnet while I was in Boulder, although I no longer had a fridge to put it on; this particular piece of kitchen wisdom seemed to make more sense of my life at that moment than all the pondering, analyzing, worrying and doubting 'd undergone in the previous two years as I struggled with my decision to take a year off and go volunteer in a developing country. The magnet showed a woman in heels running into the surf and the words read, "Ever notice that 'What the hell' is always the right decision?"

Buy a round-the-world air ticket. Quit my job. What the hell. Sublease my flat with all my furniture and worldly possessions to a virtual stranger. Come to Bali with no clear plan of action and work for a woman I'd met twice and who wasn't answering my e-mails. What the hell. Pay six months rent for a strange, dark little house with 2 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and a resident ghost. Wonder what on earth I was getting myself into. What the hell.

When I came to the Island of The Gods, I asked for two things: to learn about compassion and love and for the chance to spread my wings and fly higher as a writer. What I forgot is that while we choose our lessons, Life chooses our teachers.

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