So for anyone who missed it, I bought an apartment. And in buying an apartment I have had the realization that I have, in fact – despite my ferocious resolve to never do so – become OCD like my mother. Everywhere I look I am annoyed by the ridiculously careless and half-arsed efforts of the morons that quickly renovated this place for it’s sale. As someone who takes pride in the work that they do, the lack of respect and forethought into the work astounds me. Especially when it looks like they have put some silicon over here and then run out of the tube and couldn’t be fucked buying another one for six dollars so just left the job unfinished. Or couldn’t be bothered to seal the sink so that the water wouldn’t rot the kitchen bench…. or even grout the bathroom tiles. They just had a crack at filling up the gaps with some tile adhesive cement and when they ran out of that left some holes for water to get into around the place for decoration. It physically hurts my eyes and my soul every single time I look at a hole between the tiles and I flick back and forward between wanting to cry and smack the idiot with a fly swat.

While I knew some of this when I moved in, I discovered a whole lot more of it when I started living in the place. It is generally not until you start to occupy the space that many annoying things come to view. Today I hemmed my curtains to discover that the floor is uneven…. My friend is trying to convince me I did a shit job at hemming them and I am adamant that I measured that shit down to the millimeter. (I think she is taking the piss with me and trying to get a rise – oops, I took the bait!) The floor is definitely uneven…… Every time I look at the curtains now my OCD self is going to get annoyed. Maybe I should have hemmed them crooked…..

So anyway, my point… I am getting there! I started this blog as a challenge blog. Thomas Takes On. And what I was originally taking on was the challenges involved in travelling the world. Right now, nobody is travelling anywhere, especially us in Australia. So my latest challenge of renos is game on! I will become handyperson extraordinaire, D-I-Y guru of the highest order and all-round fucking fixer if it is the last thing I do. And most importantly, I WILL DO A GOOD JOB OF IT (unlike the people who had a crack at this the first time). How hard can it be?? (famous last words…..)

I am sure that there are going to be massive tears of frustration along the way and desperate phone calls to the brother and mother screaming “HELP!!” and a whole bunch crazy video watching online (I have already watched some Bunnings tutorials and Selley’s online silicone tutorials). But I am determined to do this! I have also sent my mother (in a not locked down state) to Bunnings to do recon and chat to the lads for me and get advice. Equipped with an order list of 30 items to be delivered to my house for the weekend, I am excited for the new adventure that lies ahead and the learning that is inevitably going to come with it. Bring on the new challenge!

We will start with sealing the kitchen sink. Then we will try and remove the excess tile cement from the walls and floor and scrape some of this out in preparation to grout. I will then also attack the mould growing in the window frames by striping and sanding them back, treating them to kill the mould and then repainting and resealing the windows. And then deal with the shit show of the grout on the bathroom floor. For now. Then I might attempt the shit show that is the hole in the wall the size of a dinner plate to allow the kitchen sink pipe in. If I look through the cupboard I can see the kids in the neighbourhood childcare centre running around over the road out of that hole, it is that big, I shit you not. Currently it is stopped up with a cardboard box and tape to stop the bugs getting in….. Anyway, a new phase in life. New learning. New challenges And I plan on doing it fucking fabulously!

*Cue “Independent Woman, Part 1” by Destiny’s Child as I dance around the house in a Superwoman outfit because that is how I plan to get this shit done – and with no audience or help, of course, because with current lockdown restrictions, nobody is allowed to come to my house (“What’s a help??)*

As with any big change that has happened before in my life, I sit here reflective. Where I have been, where I am going. How one door managed to close and another has opened. And like with every single massive thing that I have done in my life, it is a solo journey. After losing so many friends in my youth, time – and the lack of it – became undeniable. Somebody once told me “If you wait around for somebody else to be ready to do with you the things that you want to do, you will never end up doing them”. So I quit my job multiple times, travelled around the world, took all kinds of crazy risks and now here I am – buying a property.

I never thought in my wildest dreams that this would ever be possible. And yet in the midst of all the craziness in the world right now, I learned that the skills that served me travelling were also the skills that served me to do this. It all prepared me for it. In all honesty, I have dreamed of something that is my own for such a long time, I don’t even know how to process it. I remember sitting on buses in Europe and all the way through South America almost meditating on the idea that if I had my own place that I would have a garden with fragrant, fresh vegetables and decorate every room in a way that reflected each different continent. I would have an Asian-style bathroom. African drums and ornaments I accumulated in my black hardwood study. I would cook in a European-style kitchen. I bought fabrics from South America that were bright and vibrant that would fill my living room. It entertained me for hours and hours on end and I felt calm thinking about it. But I never dared tell anyone about it for fear of judgement, laughter. Criticism. Failure.

Well, 56 days ago I bought an apartment, and in 4 days I will get my keys. And I have spent the last 56 days dreaming and organising and planning everything in my own head, exactly how I did on the bus. But this time it is kind of stressful because it isn’t a dream anymore. It is real. And as much as it is scary, I can’t wait to sit alone in my space and to meditate with it and become one with it. For the first time in my life it is mine and not occupied by or belonging to someone else. I am so excited to calmly bond with my new space as I consider every object in my hand and choose where it is to live. For me it is a very romantic and intimate ritual and one I want to not madly rush through. One I want to savour. Because hopefully I will not have to do this again for a very long time. I want it all to be perfect. Exactly how I dreamed about it on the bus. And how I have dreamed about it for the last 56 days.

I don’t have a garden. But I have planned and researched what and how and where I am going to grow a bunch of vegetables throughout my kitchen and my house. I want a giant wall of greenery so that I can pick them as I want to cook with them. I have chosen some beautiful wood furniture that I can sit my drums and clave from Vanuatu on, my ukulele from Nicaragua, the games I played with Dale Danger in the Essaouiran restaurants of Morocco after buying them in the souks and to hang above it on the wall the scratch map that was gifted to me from my A-level students in England as a thank you for teaching them. I will have space to be able to put out every single object that I have accumulated that means something to me, reminds me of a place or a time in my life that was wonderful, without it being too cluttered or overwhelming with things that mean nothing, distracting me from the simplicity and joy of the space. Those functional things can be hidden behind closed doors so that I can look at all of the things that bring me happiness and memories.

I am really looking forward to being able to put proper holes in the wall to hang the artwork that I have collected from around the world. The Batik from Indonesia. The watercolours from south-east Asia. The spray can painting that my sister bought for me for my birthday off the strip in Vegas. I can’t wait to drape the yak wool blankets that I bought in Nepal from the shop owners that I had tea with every single day on the way from the hostel to Thamel and back. Or the Guatemalan blanket that Jess and I spend half an hour laughing with the woman in the market over because she couldn’t understand why we wanted a baby wrap blanket if we had no babies. The bed spread that I bought from the night market in Laos, or the one that my supervising teacher in the Cook Islands made as a gift to me in her women’s club to say thank you for the help and resources.

The truth is, many of the things that remind me of the amazing life I have led has been hidden under the bed for so long because these things felt too special to ruin in an environment that was impermanent and shared. Truth is, I can’t wait to be reacquainted with these things as I move them to their and my new home. I am excited to feel all of the emotions that come up with all these memories and to start something afresh whilst still being able to embrace the past that made me who I am today. And that got me to where I am right now – living my new dream.

A year ago today I got on a bus in London and left my life in England for good. At the time I had been through so many different emotions I didn’t know whether I would ever feel like a whole human being ever again. I was so hurt and so broken that I didn’t know if there was any coming back from that. I felt like there was nothing left to tether me to my own happiness.

I arrived in Paris where I started the first part of what would be three months in Europe and then who knew what. On that fifth day in Paris my friend passed and I couldn’t even find it in me to cry. I stood empty in the shower trying to process my emotions and not knowing how. All that happened was a blood nose from the stress and the heat and as I watched my own blood flow over my body and down the shower drain I knew that at least my body was alive, even if I felt like there was no other part of me that was.

Those first three months in Europe were rough. I isolated myself from others for fear that they would judge and dislike me because they would be able to see through me to my inner struggle and would judge me for it. That is not a burden that other travellers want to carry and so I avoided other people. I moved from place to place and saw all of the things that I was supposed to see. Ticking boxes. At times, I managed to find small pleasures, like eating every amazing food in Italy and not giving a shit about getting fat because I already was. Like finding myself completely isolated in the world and at peace with myself just for being alone. By the time I made it to Greece I had started to open myself to a select few and make some more friends. I had started to find more of a balance and felt like I could breath a little more freely as opposed to the feeling of drowning that I felt when I left. I was sleeping more and I felt like my body chemicals were going back to a normal level. I no longer lived in a hyped up state of excessive adrenaline and cortisol.

I made my way to Turkey and then Egypt where I travelled with some very wise people that I opened up to and they helped me to process further. The temples in Egypt started to excite me and slowly but surely, I started to remember who I used to be.

The biggest change happened when I arrived in Colombia. Going to school and learning to speak another language made me another person. I didn’t know how to be myself in Spanish and facets of shy and cheeky crept through. I started making a load of friends at my school and we would go out dancing on Fridays. The culture was so sensual and sexual with its dancing that I started to reconnect with my body and my own sexuality, something that I hadn’t done in such a long time as it got buried under a pile of work and stress. It got buried under my grief and hostility.

What followed was a six week stint in Costa Rica and Panama which set me back. Six weeks and four deaths. I went back into my own shell and stopped wanting to speak to people. I had a run of bad luck with illness and allergies that saw me miserable and in the hospital and wanting to throw in the towel. But I continued to ride it out because that is what I did. Because I am Dano. And people keep on telling me that I am ‘the strongest person that they know’ and so who am I to question.

I went back to Medellin, moved into the school and continued for another three months learning Spanish, teaching kids English and organising events. I started writing a book about my life as encouraged by the people closest to me. I made friends with people who gave me confidence to put myself back out into the world because they made me feel valued like I hadn’t felt in a long time. I opened up about my life and confided things about myself to others, mostly in another language. Slowly I started to feel less numb and less angry. By the time my stint in Medellin was over, I had contemplated a job and a career change to stay but in the end decided to take the six months and go home. But what I left behind in that place changed my life forever. I will always be indebted to the people that I met there because without them knowing it, they pulled me out of the hole.

I travelled Colombia for two months. And it again challenged me. After another hospital visit from a stomach so bad it wouldn’t stop, I was really well and truly done. I wanted to go home. A feeling I hadn’t felt in years but one that helped me accept the fact that it was something I was going to do. I again persisted through these feelings to quit. I kept going. And I met some more amazing people that pushed me on. I started remembering what it was like to be calm, happy and fun. I started to embrace the parts of myself that had been buried for so long that were slowly resurfacing. I started reading books that would help me to rediscover who it is that I am and what it is that I want from my life. I started writing more music, playing more music and being more in touch with the creative side of me that is a large part of who I am and often gets hidden.

I now sit in Ecuador. I am calm. I am at relative peace. In the last few months, I’ve been challenged with more loss, with horrific situations, with short-lived romances, some of which gave me faith and others which made me lose it again. But regardless of what has been thrown at me, the one thing I have found in this year that I didn’t have a year ago was equilibrium and the ability to process those emotions and let go. To accept is one of the hardest things that you can do in this life. And as I continue through South America, if all I take away from this experience is the learned ability to accept graciously then so be it. Every person who I have met that I have become close to, I have met for a reason. They have either been a test or they have been a guide. And I know that for the next three and a half months I have more of those tests and more of these guides coming my way. And I will have more once I move back home. But whatever challenge comes my way from here on in, I know I can survive it, and I know I can do it with grace and strength. Because I have already lived at the lowest point, and I clawed my way back out.

A year ago today I was a body going through the motions. Today I am a human again. My soul is at peace. My heart is ready to love and give to others. I am ready to accept whatever challenges come my way with grace. I am ready to be more. And I will be.