A short personal story…

I once found myself alone in Amsterdam. Two days before, my loving family had descended upon me, in a rather ‘interventional’ kind of way, and decided I needed to do something to ‘snap’ out of the painful emotional situation I was going through.

‘Laura, you need to do something, you can’t go on like this’ they said. In my defense, it had only been a few weeks, not even months, that my heart had been broken into a million pieces, but my family could not bear to see me like this.

‘Why don’t you do something? Go somewhere?’ Said my mum. ‘Last night I watched a documentary about Amsterdam, it’s beautiful’ said my dad. ‘That could be fun’ said my sister ‘It’s stunning this time of the year’ said my brother.

Two days later I was sitting alone on a plane headed to a place I had never been before and where I knew nobody.

I managed to hold it together until I was shown to my room at the hotel and the bellboy closed the door after him, then it hit me; what on earth was I doing here all by myself?!

I could feel the knot in my throat and my eyes swelling up with tears, oh dear, an endless waterfall was coming…

I had two choices; crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep, or get out and go for dinner. Going out for dinner by myself was something I had not done in my entire life and the thought of it was pretty terrifying! I decided to play it safe and have dinner in the hotel restaurant, it was meant to be one of the best in town.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m afraid we’re fully booked tonight’ said the maître d’ ‘but you could try our Brasserie, it’s lovely’. It was not what I wanted to hear, but I had no choice. I walked over to the Brasserie and asked for a table.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was absolutely empty. Really? I was going to sit alone, in an empty restaurant?! 🤦🏻‍♀️ At that point, I decided I would have a quick salad, go back up to the room and cry myself senseless.

As I sat feeling miserable, staring at my salad, a man walked past my table, he then stopped, traced his steps back and stood right beside me staring, ‘Are you kidding me?’ he said.

I looked up, ‘Excuse me?’ I answered in total bewilderment. He continued; ‘Are you really sitting here having dinner all by yourself?’

I didn’t know what to answer… ‘It’s a long story…’ was all I managed to say and then the waterworks started. The poor man didn’t know what to do with himself, he grabbed the servillete from the neighbouring table and handed it to me so I could dry my tears. ‘I’m so sorry’ he said ‘I didn’t mean to…’ I was sobbing uncontrollably.

He then held me by the arms and in a calm, deep voice he said:

‘Remember, life is elastic’.

His intensely deep blue eyes were gazing straight into mine, I felt almost hypnotised for a moment and a sudden calmness swept through me.

I’m not often left speechless but the unexpected interaction was too much to process and a simple ‘thank you’ was all I managed to utter. He then wished me a good evening and walked away.

That was ten years ago but I remember it as if it was yesterday. The mysterious blue eyed man was right, life is elastic. My journey of realising just how elastic it is, started on that painful, yet amazing trip to Amsterdam. I could write a whole book about it! (I think I will)

So if you are going through a difficult time and it feels as if your life is contracting, remember it’s just giving you the chance to push and expand further than you ever thought you could.
Don’t waste the chance, take it.
❤️❤️❤️

https://teleg.eu/s/LauraAbolichannel