Monthly Archives: September 2023

Adventure, Life, Road Trip, Travel

Back On The Road Again!

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Well, it’s been all of five years since I hit the road for a solo overseas trip and as I sit here on my couch with a packed backpack in front of me, it still hasn’t quite sunk in that this time tomorrow, I will be sitting on a beach in sunny New Caledonia. Hello country 71! (OK, so technically it isn’t a country, but my best mate and I had a discussion where we agreed that it indeed is one based on our criteria. We’ve gone rogue on the UN definition. A country for us involves needing a separate visa, being far away from the original territory and a general desire for independence…. maybe I will write more on this later?! But anyway, 71!!)

And in the grand tradition of me and booking flights, I did so about a week prior to departure. When I get bored, I will often sit at home on the couch scrolling through flights and dreaming of all the places I’d go and looking for cheap deals. This day I was feeling like I don’t know who I am anymore and feeling the repression of my personality from a job that drowns me and a poor choice in partner that made me feel like I needed to suppress what I should probably consider the better parts of me. The bits that are adventurous and curious. The bits that are crazy and say yes to everything and will always dive in and give something a go once. So in rebellion against this, I decided I was going hard and definitely not staying at home. Flight booked.

As always, I failed to do sufficient research and discovered after booking that New Caledonia’s beaches have been closed for the year due to an increasing number of shark attacks. A French work colleague of mine and I were discussing this. He tells me that one chased him as he ran back to the safety of the sand in thigh-high water. He said this shark was literally flinging itself at him like it was possessed. Oddly, he also told me the locals have great respect for sharks and believe the souls of their ancestors are embodied within the sharks. I was like “Of course! That is why it was flinging itself at you! You’re ‘French French’. They hate you guys! Hahahaha! That said, I’ll butcher their language enough they will probably want to make me shark food also.”

I also checked the weather to discover a full-day thunderstorm, followed by 2 more days of rain, which will kill some of the snorkelling visibility. So I’m now not sure what I’m going to do. But this also makes me excited. In the past when things like this happen, I’ve been forced to pivot in ways that have led me to some of the strangest adventures. Call it a gut feeling, but I’m feeling interesting times ahead. And maybe even the start of another half book (not that I’ve finished the others… hmmm…). So for now, I say peace out! I’ll update you on the other side!

Challenge, Learning, Life

I’m Never Fucking Leaving Myself

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This week has been a confronting one for me in so many different ways. When you think you’re good and you’ve done the self-work and let go of all the things you think you need to let go of to move forward, somebody will undoubtedly hold a mirror to you to show you that you’re not done yet. There is still a very long way to go in the whole learning process that they call life. And I’m starting to come to come to terms with the fact that the point in time I will be done with this learning is the point where I am dead. Burying your head in the sand causes as much pain as confronting the issues that hold us back and have us make atrocious choices for ourselves.

I think, the truth is, that there will always be pain. This is unavoidable. Our choices come in the ways that we choose to deal with it. We can choose to deal with it in a way where we completely abandon ourselves and let others make choices for us. Or we can embrace the mantra of one of my dear friends and shout from the skies “I am never fucking leaving myself” whilst we offer ourselves space and compassion to process.

For the first time in my life, this is the year I’m never fucking leaving myself. I’ve learned to assert boundaries. I’ve learned to express my needs and I’m now learning the hard lessons about where my needs come from in the face of having them not be met. I never before really thought about why these things were things that I needed until I had the rude realisation that my needs were rooted in a place of deep trauma. And instead of burying myself under piles of work, I chose to honour myself and I took some time out. I listened to what my body needed. I listened to what my brain needed and I sat and worked to process, self-soothe and heal. I gave my vulnerability to those I trust and allowed myself to be supported by incredible people.

The reality is, not everyone deserves our trust or our vulnerability. Some people will not step up for us in the ways that we need them to, even when we ask. Some may not realise at the time and we can communicate this and test. But if they disregard us again then it is not our responsibility to fight to change them or to fix it. That is their journey. We can only accept what is. We either get what we need or we don’t. We accept the situation for what it is, or we walk away.

Truth be told, there will always be a lesson to learn. There will always be work. There will always be sadness, pain, anger and all the emotions that come with being a human. The only thing I do know, as I sit here in the cold with my toes in the sand, is that I am a mountain. I am tall, proud and immovable in the fiercest of climates. The world can throw all of the shit at me and it’s going to hurt. But the one thing I’m never doing again is leaving myself. Ever. I’m never fucking leaving myself..