Goodbye Brisbane, hello world!

It’s 4.30 am New York time. I have been sitting in JFK airport for 7 hours now, dozing on and off on a café couch to the sounds of loudspeaker announcements and air conditioning. My three month time in Grand Cayman has come and gone, it feels like I lived a dream for 90 days; a dream in which I feel I excelled not only personally but also professionally. Now that time is up I can’t help but feel thoroughly sad that it is all over. The things that I did, the stuff that I saw and the people that I met made for the most thrilling and enjoyable life experience I have ever had.
My goal for the trip? Was to help conserve the most endangered iguana on earth: The Blue Iguana; Cyclora lewisi and to have as much fun as I could while doing just that. Goal accomplished!
But now I’ve helped save the Blues… I’ve got the blues… Extinction lasts forever, but my three month dream in one of the most beautiful places on earth, cannot. In some ways though, I am glad that I am going home… I think that such wonderful experiences should always end eventually, or how can we ever compare them to everyday life in order to fully appreciate them? I can honestly say that I had the best three months of my life over there. I was challenged to try things I had never done before; I was encouraged to work harder than I had ever done before, and I was rewarded with the most beautiful and fascinating people that I met along the way, and the knowledge that I had, in many ways, made a difference somehow.
Last night, as I flew over the east coast of the United States away from paradise, I watched as the sun set for 70 beautiful minutes. The longest sunset I had ever seen; the horizon glowed red for over an hour and the deep orange orb of the sun sat; teetering on the edge of disappearance for an hour as we flew ahead of time itself. A beautiful end to a wonderful long three months, the last sunset I will see for a while in this hemisphere. I hope not too much time will pass before I may see one again.
I could go on to thank all the people that made my time in Grand Cayman so wonderful, but they would just be unnecessary words on a page. They know who they are, and what they mean to me. They are absolutely beautiful people, who I miss terribly already and who have each changed my life a little bit for the better in their own special way. It is scary and wonderful how people can connect so well, at a level deeper than anything, just by sharing a passion. It is these moments in life that make us so human, and thus so vulnerable to every experience that comes with it. But that is the beauty of life.
Smiley face.
xo