I honestly ask myself that question daily.  Truly I do!  I’m on a different continent in a different world.  A paradise in its own bubble, a polar opposite from the island of NY, and yet I happened to choose here.  Or did the island choose me? 

Everything back in NY had come to an end.  My marriage was over, the boys were off to college, it was the best time for me to take this sabbatical.  Time to relax, grow & learn while figuring out what I wanted to focus on for the next chapter.  Where better to do it than on an island in the middle of the Meditteranean? 

Little did I know when leaving NY that the world would come under attack from Covid-19, and life as we knew it would change for everyone.  Unbeknownst to me initially, it really was the perfect time for me to take flight.  The right time to be off the grid and take this time to slow down.  I’ve had friends ask if I had a crystal ball to have seen what was coming with the pandemic when I left.  No, I did not.  Just my intuition.

I knew deep down on some soul level that if I’d stayed in NY I’d have become dis-eased due to stress.  It was the wrong environment for me.  I was burnt out.  My body was struggling, with ongoing knee problems and inflammation.  I knew that I was too young to be feeling so old.  It wasn’t the life I wanted.  On a deeper level, I knew that I needed to slow down after all the years of running around living life on the grid.  Mine had been a busy, full & colorful life selling real estate, raising my precious boys, supporting my husband, building a beautiful home, and many earlier years working on Wall Street.  The 26 years I had spent in NY came and went by in a blur, with zero regrets for the choices made, achievements gained and people met.  But my NY chapter had come to an end.  A new one was unfolding.  I should add, as I’m a lover of astrology, and being a fire sign in Sagittarius it made perfect sense to want to take off, explore and travel somewhere.  The adventurer in me was ready to start again and try something new.  On a deeper level, I knew I was doing the right thing.  

So why Ibiza you ask? A scorpion island nestled off the coast of Spain?  I was fortunate to know the island from previous family vacations. Summers past spent visiting the island brought me more in love with the lifestyle in the med.  Natural in beauty, and light with forestry and some of the best beaches in the Med.  The self-discovery, creativity, and freedom this island lends – what better place to be during a lockdown?   So there I was, flying out of JFK, on a windy Sunday night, just before midnight, November 3rd, 2019 with nothing but a few packed bags & my new Sony headphones.  My year off the grid had begun.  I was taking a different roadmap.  My journey of self-discovery had started.