WHAT the F%$!.  What is going on here, I am living, by choice, on a small island in the Puget Sound.  How did I get here and what was I thinking? It was just four months ago that I broke free of what we called our small rock in the Pacific, and now, here I am, on a smaller rock, still in the Pacific and this time just a short ride from Seattle and yet ever so far away when you take kids and schedules into account. I can now sit on the shore and stare at the city I long for, and then come home to my painfully peaceful new island home.

 Stop.

 Breath.

 I feel like I am in an Alfred Hitchcock film, and there are murderers dressed as afluent housewives staring at me with lots of suspenseful music, waiting for their chance to pounce. Body snatchers.  I intentionally said yes to us moving to this really small place and this is exactly why I created 13 Adventures – isn’t it.  I mean seriously, I could live in Seattle center and still get so locked into what my kids are doing from minute to minute or who needs a ride where, or picked up when, or to which doctor, that I would never actually visit the places I want to go, or try new things. I didn’t need a tiny island for that to happen. And yet, here I am – on a tiny island.  What’s the world trying to say to me?

 It’s 10:00 pm, I just heard the Ferry blare its long deep horn as it departed back from here to the busy Seattle docks. Here will shut down, it already has, the sidewalks are rolled up and the tourist shops snoozing until tomorrow. I’m a mom and a wife and really not a party goer, especially midweek, but I can’t keep from feeling just a little bit like a kept woman, locked away in her tower – on an island.

 My man is amazing, and there is no way he would support this idea of locking me away, unless of course I really wanted that I suppose. But I don’t, and I’m not, and still that feeling creeps in like I am.  I’m going to have to pay attention to that.  If the mere idea that the ferry stops running at midnight means I am trapped on this island – and I can’t handle that, then I’m screwed – we’re all screwed. If, however, I can see the adventure in this new style of living – the isolation = new perspectives, then this new place could really be a new door to a new life. We shall see.