We sit at the table in our villa outside Seminyak Village and try to make plans for the next day. Are we going to the monkey forest or maybe just to a sea temple? We are also trying to decide if we should leave Bali for Singapore in 2 days or in 6 days.

I am ready to move on, so I vote for 2 days, and all three of us start researching that timeline. So we sit at the table and search for flights. Rachel is trying to figure out if we can just change the date on our existing flight, a large task itself trying to create an account online and then wait in line to chat with someone. After a series of dropped calls and websites timing out we decide to call it a night.  We will attack this situation in the morning either before or after our sight seeing.

I wake up the next day and have a feeling in my stomach, I think it is just hunger pains because all I had for dinner last night was a PB&J…yes I made one in Bali. Sometimes you just want something simple. I shower, get dressed and even put on a little powder on my face. I walk out to the kitchen and make breakfast. Some hot tea, one piece of toast and scramble some eggs. We have a little deli, Bali Deli, just a short walk away that has allowed us to buy some comforts. But we do have to cross one of the busiest streets in the area while dodging cars and even worse, scooters.

Scooters are the main transportation on the island and it seems like there are no rules. They drive wherever the want, in between cars and even on the sidewalk. If they can squeeze through it they will drive there.

As I finish making my eggs I begin to realize that these are not hunger pains and I get that all too familiar feeling that I am not well, I think I am going to pass out. I leave my food right where it is and go to my bathroom. Luckily the villa we are staying at has three bedrooms each with their own bathroom attached.

I will not go into details but I quickly realize that I am down for the count. I see my reflection in the mirror and I am pale, worse than normal given that I have gotten a little tan if I do say so myself. My lips have no color and all I can do is make it to the bed still wearing my dress I had picked out for the day. I send a text to Natalie and Rachel letting them know that I am out for the day. Rachel comes in to check on me and says she is not feeling awesome either.

Well there go all my plans, and if you ask my family I am a planner when it comes to trips. I usually am the navigator sitting shotgun with my dad on road trips. Before GPS I had the big atlas ready and would help him pick the best route and look out for the next interstate to take.

As I have gotten older and technology has advanced I have become the family travel agent. I enjoy looking up fun things to do in cities we are visiting, picking the hotels and even restaurants with local flare to eat at. My siblings and I have made at least one trip together a year for the last several ranging from Charlotte, NC for a soccer game, Orlando, FL to run marathons at Disney World and to our biggest adventure, a trip to London and Ireland. Through all these adventures I have been the planner and things generally go well.

But today things are not going my way. I am in bed all day not getting much into my system accept some water and a little bread. The others decide everything was not working last night and the fact that I am in bed, maybe tomorrow is not the best day to leave. They book a villa in Ubud until our previously scheduled departure date. I have enjoyed Bali but I will be honest, I could take it or leave it. Bali is known for its abundance of surfing and yoga, and I do neither. And as I have mentioned before I have fair skin so l have a limited amount of time where I can layout by the pool or beach. But I want to enjoy this time I have here, who knows if I will ever have another chance to come back.

So as we are riding in the van on our 2-hour journey to Ubud I think about planning. I wonder if this part of the trip is to help me realize that sometimes things do not go as we plan. This could be said for so many different aspects of life. An event gets rained out; you don’t get a job you wanted or so many other examples. I myself had planned to be married with a couple of kids by my early thirties, but that hasn’t happened. I just have to remind myself that all things happen for a reason and we usually don’t get an outlined itinerary of what our life will be like. But I do know that I am able to be on this trip because of the life that I do have and because I don’t have certain obligations keeping me to one place. I know I am truly lucky. So, since I am in the land of yoga, I might as well take some classes.

I go to a beginner’s class and even to a salsa class. I love to dance and I felt like I was in a rehearsal studio on Dancing with the Stars. But minus me being a star and also a lack of male partners. But I am having fun and trying to let go. I have even had a ride on a scooter into town. It was scary at first but once I relaxed it was actually really enjoyable. But I don’t think that will be my main mode of transportation for the remainder of the trip.

At the pool today I was sitting with Natalie and I had a visitor, a dragonfly landed on my shoulder and stayed with me for a couple of minutes. I researched dragonflies and founds that they have a very short life span, so they don’t have a lot of time to waste. So a visit from one means that they have something very important to tell you. They represent the reminder to stay present in the moment and not to stress out. Also they could be a representation of the need for change in one’s life.

Well if that is not a summery of the last 2 months of my life I don’t know what is. Traveling has a way of making you focus on being present and enjoying all that surrounds you. I have an amazing opportunity to see and experience so many things. I just need to remind myself to not take things for granted and if my plan does not go exactly the way I thought, that is fine. There must be something else that I was meant to see or somewhere else I was meant to be. And I am okay with that. Besides staying a week longer in Bali allowed me to make a new friend, Sam.