Wind of Change

Wind of Change

carla.ornelas@gmail.com

Lately it’s been touching me like a light breeze. As each day passes, I feel its strength increase while it whispers in my ears, blowing sweet nothings and everything’s through my hair. After so long of searching for it, it seems that it has found me: the wind of change.

Before I left South Africa, it seemed like everything simply fell into place. I finally saw those friends that I hadn’t seen for ages, buried old hatchets and mended fences. Although time was limited, miraculously it seemed there was enough of it to do all the things that needed to be done. Without much planning and with little effort, things somehow just fell into place. And while it seemed that change was difficult, it became clear to me that change becomes easier once your mind and heart are set.
After six weeks since deciding upon my departure, I stood looking through my bedroom window onto clear blue skies in awe of how difficult and easy it is to close a chapter on our lives.
At that moment, I zipped up the two large suitcases, rechecked that my passport and boarding pass was in my handbag and took a deep breath before saying goodbye to the room that was home to my soul. Even once buckled up in my chair, I wasn’t sure whether or not to run back to my devastated parents. Your soul is sure, your heart never truly is.

Three years and nine months I’ve been living on Madeira Island. Two of these years, I’ve been planning to get out. Out where?
Anywhere.
Any place that will give me the opportunity to continue growing and learning. I want evolution in my education, in my career and I seek the opportunity to get to know more people. It’s in the name of this quest that I’ve searched release from the limits an island imposes upon me.

Countless Curriculum Vitae’s have been sent around the world.
England.
Canada.
New York.
Florida.
Brazil
Lisbon… and even
Sunny South Africa.

Where do I truly want to go? I don’t know how to answer that question except to say:
I want to go where the wind takes me, where the earth moves me and where I can build my home. I want to go where opportunities grab me and where destiny pulls me; I want to be where I belong… I just don’t know exactly where that is. But I’ll let you know once I get there.

It’s not as if life doesn’t give me opportunities… but all of the ones I’ve gotten lately, my heart tells me not to follow.
Secretary to a pharmaceutical company?
I’m capable of so much more than that!... even if I’m meant to earn more money.
And so I allow these opportunities to pass me by, whilst I wait for the right turn off onto the highway of my destiny.

In the last two weeks. I’ve finally finished those chores I’ve been meaning to finish for months. I’ve filled the blanks to mysteries that threatened never to be solved and I’ve managed to update all my personal paperwork. Clients that have left pending issues with me for months suddenly have appeared to resolve them. It seems like fate, for no apparent reason has decided to spring clean my life. Closing my eyes and humbly thanking God for these small opportunities that make a big difference I recognise the hand of the wind of change.

No, I haven’t gotten any concrete offers. I don’t know what I’ll be doing in the next six months or how I’m going to cope but I do know where I’ll be. It seems life has chosen Lisbon as my next destination and my soul is so sure that it’s willing to put its certainty into these written words. The interviews that await me no longer make me nervous.
As if something stronger than me has taken over the control of my life, I watch in awe as things begin to fall into place.

When life brings you to the crossroads do you embrace the wind of change or do you fight against it? Change has and always will be frightening for all of us even though there are those more adept for it than others.
Doubt confirms that the change is for real.
You are then given the choice to hold onto the opportunity that life gives you or allow it to pass you by. Some opportunities come around more than once, but most are the kind that may never pass you by again. To know that you have this choice, you must be able to recognise the wind of change. Allow it to speak to you. To touch you and your life for only then can you decide whether or not to embrace it.