Living the Story of My Life in the Caribbean

It is good to be moving again, to be traveling and experiencing another part of this beautiful Earth. My adventure has taken me to San Andrés, a small Colombian island in the Caribbean not far from the coast of Nicaragua.

An absolutely beautiful island surrounded by the Caribbean Ocean, San Andrés is a mix of seven different shades of blue like something out of a fairy tale. I have spent my days exploring the smaller islands, snorkelling in the surrounding reefs and taking in the sun on the crystal clear beaches.

On the island Bob Marley is king and the friendly locals talk with strong Caribbean accents. The locals may be friendly but they never miss an opportunity to make some extra money. If you need to know anything ask a local. If they aren’t sure they will return with a list of options and prices for whatever you want to do.

I still have a lot to take in on San Andrés, including scuba diving lessons and trying out kite surfing but the thing I am looking forward to most is a trip to Provedencia. La Provedencia is a sparsely populated island inhabited by Rastafari and is roughly three hours by boat from San Andrés. With less crowds and a deeper, more authentic Rasta culture to experience I absolutely cannot wait to enjoy more of what the Caribbean has to teach me.

One of the things I realise as I sit here, clock slowly counting the seconds remaining in this paradise, is that there is beauty in the finite. That it is beautiful because it is finite.

The finality creates the experience. It has a start and an end and we can appreciate it as a whole. As a single experience and while we have fun living it, It is the memory that makes us smile, that makes us melancholic, that makes us long for more. The finite creates the beauty, a piece of frozen time, which lasts forever.

Finite implies change and though we may not want a moment to end we understand that having lived it, that it is possible. That Happiness, Love and Awe are real, and finding it in this experience we can find them and more in others.

Because to experience one moment for eternity would be insufferably boring!

So we keep looking for these moments. We keep searching. We keep moving and we keep living. We move with life and collect experiences as we go. We hold onto them and they mould us and shape us until finally our life as a human being comes to an end and the full experience of a life becomes a single moment, a memory.

A moment containing all of the experiences that make up what it means to be alive.

All Experience, from the ones that leave us in despair to the ones that make us cry with ecstasy, are incredible. Because, the true beauty of a life is a story a collection of experiences from having lived it. With triumphs and setbacks, mystery and discovery and the thrill of sharing a journey with those you love and are yet to love.

So move, live life and don’t stand still, create the beauty of your life so when it is over you can smile at the brief moment you had to experience being alive!