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In a small act of self-care I enrolled in couples therapy with my husband of eleven years and a writing class on the same day. One September afternoon, the golden light pouring through the ponderosa pine trees, it felt like a revolution had been started. My own personal revolution against letting life slip into the groove of what is easy. The place where life goes when one is not intentionally building, creating and guiding. It felt invigorating to show up each week and write with others. Everyone had something to say and some new perspective to offer. It was like going from the high desert, dotted with Juniper trees and sage brush to Kauai with its lush variety of flowers, trees, and leaves. Suddenly, I could see all the color and variety. I began to realize, I had not been stuck, I had quit looking. Arriving one cold winter morning to class, 5 minutes late in my usual fashion, I came feeling particularly emotionally messy. By this point I was several sessions into couples therapy and we had hit the inevitable point of all the emotional baggage being laid out before us. It is enough to make anyone want to avert their gaze… and I am a therapist myself! That day the woman leading the writing group began the class with, "I will be hosting a writing group like this one in Havana Cuba in January, I hope all of you can join me.” A spark deep down caught fire - I knew I had to go. I owed it to myself. I owed it to the thousand variations of my past self that all had one thing in common, a passion for travel. I wish the story had ended there. With a bit of salty hindsight, I should have just gone home and booked my flights but I didn't. I stayed in that familiar uneventful vanilla groove life had seemingly created for me. I flirted, fantasized, and fully researched plane tickets and travel information. I read the website repeatedly. I told others, "I am going to go" and "I don't think I can go." Finally it hit me. I can try something different or do the same thing. The words I often say to clients that I learned from the incredible Virginia Satir came back to me, "we change when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of doing something different." On a cold, particularly gloomy and windy day, I did something different. I booked the trip. Just for me and no one else. Purely to do something different. Eight short weeks later, my hometown in the depths of winter ice and snow I was stepping off the plane to a swaying jet bridge and finally into the airport in Cuba. I could feel the humidity sink into me. It enveloped me and forced my clothes to hang on my limbs. The smell of life, forest, salt and exhaust washed over me. As I walked I began to see a clear sign that said, “Baggage and Customs” pointing to the left. As I get closer I could see a second sign that said, “Baggage and Customs” pointing to the right. I felt cultural vertigo, thrown from my norms and increasingly aware of how little Spanish I actually retained. Just one short hour ago I sat drinking coffee passing the hours of layover I had in Miami on American soil and now here I am in a place that feels utterly foreign. Customs was a series of “gracias”, smiles, head nods, and pointing. I was on guard for the next curve ball, the next new thing, the misunderstanding, the questions, and somehow none of that happened. After spending hours researching all that could go wrong, nothing went wrong. Travel once again assured me that the world is full of amazing cultures and people who are waiting to surprise. Being immersed in Cuban culture was a healing salve for my soul and as it has turned out for my relationships too. I found liberation in the vibrant arts, the hot and sweaty multi-partner salsa dance, being on my own and the creativity of living in Havana, Cuba.