New diary entry:

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Having a herbal tea at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. It’s a beautiful hotel in the Rocky Mountains. It’s a real castle with a beautiful view overlooking the mountains. When I look outside the window, I feel like I can fly. The sky is the limit. Just reading the back of my Egyptian Chamomile "delightfully aromatic with an expressive and refreshing apple-like character. Light body with a pole cup often sipped for relief or insomnia”.. hahaha... because I am at the edge of insomnia. In six days, I will be boarding a plane back to Frankfurt, Germany after 10 years living in Canmore, Alberta, Canada.

 

I still remember when I first visited Canada as a young kid, after my first heartbreak. I am so glad my aunt took me in at that time. Lots happened since then, I graduated, I got married, moved here and started fresh in all ways possible. Canada has always been my home. It made my dreams come true and I still love this country, exactly the same way I did on that first night, when I came out to the Ottawa River with my aunt and two very old sleeping bags on a greyhound bus. The silence I felt standing on its mighty ground, just a closed gas station on the side of the road and then I looked upon the endless dark blue night sky, an ocean of stars. It was alive, I could feel it, all of it, the stars and the mighty pine tries surrounding this piece of land in the middle of nowhere. It was pure magic. Something I have never felt before and if there would be one day I could relive, it would be the day I went on this White Water Rafting trip a day later... That’s a long time ago, but I still remember it so well. In the meantime, my aunt died, I inherited some money and bought our first condo, so I could finally have a pet. Actually, a tiny little rescue kitten from the shelter I named “Hope”. So, I bought our first apartment in Canada, affordable housing, since it was all I could afford. I also had a nice job working for a developer in town and I thought I would be married to my husband forever. I thought we would live the fairy-tale of two people following their dream… Looking back, I have to laugh. We sold the affordable housing apartment within two years, since it was a very bad investment. I quit my job two years later, since I didn’t feel fulfilled and somehow believed there could be something better out there for me, but it wasn’t. My career went downhill from that moment on, together with my savings and my marriage. Even so, we lived in the most tranquil setting ever, like surrounded by pine trees, blue skies and snow-covered mountains; our next-door neighbors mostly deer, coyotes and squirrels etc., it felt terrible inside our relationship and our new rental apartment soon felt like a four-star prison and I just wanted out… but how… so limited financially, no work, no self-esteem left. I escaped to Halifax for a week but I didn’t have it in me to start all over, alone and just spent the entire week by the ocean, close to a beautiful lighthouse right on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The rock I was sitting on was always warm from the afternoon sun and I just laid down. Occasionally, I felt some salty drops from the ocean drying on my skin, which the wind carried across the coastline. I felt safe here and deep down I hoped the ocean would have some answers for me or would just swallow me up. But the only answer I ever got was an inner knowing, that everything will be fine, and that I will live near the ocean some day… When I came back from this trip my husband decided to go back to Germany (what he always wanted but never admitted). At that point, I didn’t have the strength nor the passion to survive in Canada by myself and decided to go back as well, even so it was the last thing I ever wanted to do and it gave me the chills just thinking about it.

 

So, here I am during one of my last days in Canada, sitting on this beautiful couch at the Banff Springs hotel, looking outside and admiring the majestic mountains, wishing I could turn myself into a bird and fly over this mountain range into the sunset, never having to look back.

 

But I am still here, finishing my tea and wondering what my future will look like. By now I can feel the calming effects of the Egypt Camomile tea and I am starting to relax a bit. My nervous system really needs a break and some loving space to recover. It’s completely overworked looking ahead, which will probably a divorce, some time living with my parents again or in the car, if I still would have one… and I don’t know of how many months of unemployment… and because I would literally go crazy, if I would think too much about it, I started a little project. I filmed all the beautiful places I have been to, all the majestic and beauty that was part of my life for so long, all the inspirational people and yoga teachers, I became friends with, which have been part of my life for so long. I taped some of our conversations to capture our wisdom and the love we shared over the years. I so wish that soon I will shift from being lost to being found. And then I look one more time at the mountains surrounding this place, which have told me all those years, that everything is possible and that magic is real and the world is a place of beauty. They also taught me, to be strong and change my perspective to the one of an eagle. That from high above I can see the bigger picture. So, I looked upon them many times and in my mind, I became the eagle and would soar above their powdery white peaks…

 

In the meantime, I have finished my tea and decided to move on and take a last stroll to the heart of downtown Banff. Deep down I know, that someday everything will be all right once more and I will have a home near the ocean. There is no logic to my life and my reality is depressing but then there is magic too and I still believe in it. I still believe that dreams come true and that, if the time is right, the miracle will happen…