Some of my inner monologues over the last 36 months, as turbulent as the times. Since apparently a lot of the words we read these days will be generated by robots, maybe my quiet way of contributing to keeping the humanness in what we read is by having some fun blogging again?

The reason I write, as Zadie Smith has said, “…..is so that I might not sleep walk through my entire life.”

Or as my fave, Joan Didion penned, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

The very reason I love reading is tied to the comfort it brings to have another human being put into words the things, experiences, feelings, that I didn’t have the words for. To get a sense of someone else’s human experience. To have words wake us up to something new. I just feel a bit weird about the state of things. And I want to keep reading words written by humans. So here’s some more of mine, written throughout the years of lockdowns, that I’ll let live on the internet.

“Patience is the ability to be at ease with the unfolding.

It’s unfolding.” – Danielle Laporte

March 27th, 2020

The long string of unstructured days begins.

I’m enjoying little reasons to leave the apartment – coconut milk, limes, sweet potatoes.

Unsurprisingly, I am thinking of and craving home. The dry, grey, cold. Everything still spotted with snow. It’s the time of year where Dad would remind me to look for the first signs of spring. 

I have been wondering, what if I had never left my apartment #905? I wouldn’t be stuck on the other side of the Pacific for one. But it’s hard to imagine my life without the year that I left and turned 30. It is such a vibrant beautiful year in my memory. I walked that sun bleached coastal walk every day with this feeling of freedom and possibility lighting me up. I was starting from scratch. I didn’t leave 905 because I was unhappy. I left because I had this little feeling nagging at me saying, what else?

Coming back to Australia was not easy. It’s been a difficult few years. A sharp contrast to my first year in Sydney. Less vibrant. Studying again, a crammed busy city, a neighbourhood I felt claustrophobic in, a job I hated. It was all a grind if I’ve ever felt one. Looking desperately for the pay off, and instead
considering that everything I already had was perhaps more than enough. 905 was
more than enough.

April 15, 2020.

In my boredom I rearranged our bedroom, but I think I may have messed with the fengshui as we are both having terrible sleeps now.

I’m having a lot of anxious thoughts about whats next. I thought that I was nearing some kind of “pay off”, a point where follow your dreams all came together. Some kind of destination. That idea seems to have come crumbling down around me. I landed what I thought was going to be the dream job, I hated it, and now the world is ending.

Hilarious.

I feel quite tired of chasing things. When all that really matters to me is at a lake in the mountains in BC. I just want my family and friends around at the cabin. It’s all I ever want. 

In my slow, leisurely coastal walks with nowhere to be, nowhere to go, I’ve been noticing the birds more. Despite everything else, this feels like a good thing.

April 21, 2020

My yoga membership has kicked in again. Last night I did my first online yoga class in my bedroom lead by Duncan Peak from 4:30-5:30 and at 5:31 I had a glass of wine in my hand. A yoga lesson that feels especially potent right now. Do I want to achieve, get rid of, acquire, strive, chase….. Or do I want to be free?

April 20 something

It’s the warmest Australian fall I’ve experienced, or maybe I’m just noticing it more fully. My daily coastal walks are not something to check off and then onto the next thing. I walk slowly through the autumn heat, with nowhere to get to fast.

I’m loving the quiet. The empty sparkling beaches – just clusters of seagulls staring at the waves or splashing in the shallow calm turquoise pools that form between the rocks. I like not having endless options of things to do, productivity always the priority.

I’m tired of the question, where to next?

I was happiest in the February of 2016 on a Mexican coastline, in a hot humid yoga studio, breathing in and out, thinking, “I love my life.”

It was that same trip I decided Sydney was what was next.

May something

In July of 2019, two out of three friends stood in front of me on the pebbles of the cabin’s driveway. The third was gathering the last of the bags. I was crying. “This is really, really hard,” I admitted.

Living far away from 95% of my most cherished relationships, trying to squeeze everyone in in 4 weeks, sometimes only for a few precious hours, was really, really hard.

“How do I do this?” was all I could think about as I fell asleep each night, eyes watering. Not exactly how one wants to feel on a holiday. My heart had never felt so heavy.

That was before the world locked down and borders closed. That was when I still always had the confidence that I could catch a flight home whenever I needed. 

I still don’t know how to do this. I’m not sure I ever will. I have discovered, if anything, that it is entirely possible to feel happy and sad at the same time. And to admit that I am sad feels really scary, because it’s having me confront the fact that the year “everything fell into place,” has been one of the hardest.

Is it okay to admit that studying for another qualification at 30 and moving abroad and missing home and sharing a closet with a man for the first time was all a lot, even if it was what I wanted? Building friendships and finding a community while grieving what I left behind.

Job titles, rings, sought after real estate, the perfect city, the perfect apartment within a ten minute walk to the perfect yoga studio. Tick tick tick.

It’s been a LOT. A lot of beautiful things. A lot of beautiful things that I’ve been lucky to do, find, and work at. I’m beginning to recognise that there can be a world of good swirling around me, and it’s okay to greet it with honesty.

I am recognising that I got caught up in a checklist again, even if it was a checklist that I had proudly constructed myself with years of self-inquiry, personal development work, goal setting, etc. I had learned enough to not fool myself into thinking I wanted an office job and a 3 bedroom house for example. I had carefully created a list that was very aligned to me. But, as I waited for that next goal to be completed, as I waited for the right job, the next vacation, life was happening and I think I forgot to enjoy bits of it. I think I was sleepwalking.

I couldn’t enjoy my last trip home because it just felt like I was saying goodbye all over again. I couldn’t write what I was actually feeling because I was afraid of my own honesty. Afraid I was wrong to leave 905. 

May 25th, 2021

I was at the very front of a yoga class this morning my fingertips sometimes grazing the sheer curtain in front of me. I like that spot because I can’t see a thing except white paint, brick and sheer curtains. Nothing but me and my mat and that day, clarity.

Despite my heartbreak that I’m burying way deep down – the heartbreak of being far away from my family and most of my closest friends, with still no date in sight for a reunion. Despite all this, I also felt this overwhelming clarity that I am exactly where I am meant to be.

The clarity was startling. How can I feel this so certainly when all that truly matters to me is across the Pacific. When I stare out east, past the stunning coastline I get to call home, all I can think of is them. It is an irreconcilable thing in my heart, and has been for a long time now.

How many emotions can one person possibly hold?

Not this many, hence the savasana tears.

If I had had a crystal ball, I never could have gotten on that airplane back to Sydney two years ago.

June 21, 2021

5:30pm. I was in that same spot of white paint and brick and sheer curtains. Under the skylight, clouds were drifting over a dark purple sky. I felt present, alive, here, awake, and happy.

These words – “Stop pushing away what the universe is offering up.”

Five days later we went back into lockdown.

July 10, 2021

My oldest friend, and one of my best friends, just had her baby.

God I miss my friends.

I miss us.

I miss all those years together.

While I was busy worrying about boys and goals and what am I doing with my life? . . . It never occurred to me that some day, far away, I would look back and only see them. Us.

We were the highlights, the best thing, the constant laughter and love within all the wild recklessness and lost days. Friends. We grew into who we are together.

It never occurred to me that those days would end. It never occurred to me that there would be a day when our lives wouldn’t be on the same city streets anymore. Where are my friends filling up my kitchen? Placing a bottle in a brown paper bag on my countertop, unwrapping a wheel of brie and grabbing my Oma’s cheese knife.

I know where they are – with their husbands, feeding their babies, or on zoom calls with work. They are just a button away and my screen will say “connecting…”

But I miss us being only a couple of weekdays away. I miss saying, see you next weekend. Run Club Wednesday? Drinks Friday? Wanna come over? 

It was only ever a handful of days before I’d be sliding into a booth next to them, or clinking a glass, or making room for them on my couch.

I miss the constancy. I miss not knowing how precious it all was.

It never occurred to me that everything I was chasing could mean not having them across from me, right beside me, holding my drink, changing the song, saying, “I’m here!”

Life kept propelling us forward, it just never occurred to me that it was propelling us further apart. I never thought I’d be here. Feeling this. Missing them. Missing us.

July 20, 2021

I read something today – “You are living in an answered prayer. Remember that while you’re waiting for the next one to be answered.”

I remember, in April of 2017, I had never wanted time to stop so badly. All I wanted was him and that Bronte Beach cliff and the ability to keep walking that coastal walk. I remember before I met him, saying out loud – in my next life, I want to be Australian. Can I just stay here – spend the rest of my days here.

And here I am now, unable to envision anything else for my future other than home. There were so many places I still wanted to see, experiences I wanted to have. Such a big wide world that was beckoning. Sort of paralysing in its choices. And now, it almost comes as a relief, that all I want is home. It’s icey blue sky winters. It’s make-the-most of it summers. The late afternoon sun making the mountains look hazy while driving to the lake. The same bars and restaurants I spent all those Friday nights in. My friends. My family. At arms reach.

All those dreams and places. None of it seems to matter much anymore.

Sometimes I wonder if this is just evidence of the utmost attachment to what was – or is it simply a lesson in realising what truly matters to me.

Maybe all this is just a pit stop on my way home.

July 21, 2021

My permanent residency was approved today. A 2017 answered prayer.

It feels like some sort of cruel trick. With Australia’s increasingly strict border bans, my permanent residency is more like an official jail sentence than something to celebrate. All I wanted was that cliff overlooking the ocean and the person that is now my fiance; I have all that now. As the months turn into years, it’s starting to feel like I’m going to have to make the choice between everything I wanted, and my family.

Gone are the days when knowing “I could hop on a plane and be home in 15 hours,” could ease any feelings of homesickness.

I still remember that trip to Mexico. The yoga retreat. That beach, the water shimmering. I was 28. It was February. “I’m moving to Sydney.”

The tiny decisions.

August 13th, 2021

Maybe it’s the New Moon energy, maybe it’s the warmer weather, maybe it’s the daily yoga, but I feel a bit better. 

Maybe it’s no wonder I can’t seem to envision anything new for myself; I still feel wrapped up in old dreams, prayers answered. 

I’m living them. I live in ocean air beside that coastal walk. I am engaged to the person I fell in love with. I work for my favourite yoga studio, writing content for them and managing the studio that’s across the street from my apartment. The beach lifestyle, with everything at my doorstep, no longer needing to worry about visas. It’s all unfolded. 

I’m still learning to bask in the dreams that came true, that have been greatly overshadowed by the current times.

There are no new dreams except one: I want to be with my family.

June, 2023

I was staring at the ocean this morning, which I haven’t been doing enough of lately. Some weeks it does feel like I’m sleep walking through the days, distracted by the mundane. Scrolling, unsubscribing, deciding what’s for dinner, searching for the zoom link, forgetting to text back. Some days do feel very robotic. But the whales are back and the winter sun is out in full force so I get up and walk down to the coastline. I became an Australian citizen a few weeks ago. In my next life I want to be Australian. 

While I was staring at the ocean it dawned on me that I don’t think I ever said thank you. It happened. I can stay here. I can spend the rest of my days here.  If I choose to.  I’m not sure who I am saying thank you to. The big blue, the universe, Australian immigration, my Australian-born husband, something out there greater than ourselves? All I know is that when I stare at the ocean I do feel very reminded of the synchronicity of things. I am reminded to feel the awe of it all. I’m reminded of the things that are unfolding, and have unfolded. So staring at the same coastline I fell so in love with 7 years ago, I said thank you and I meant it. 

“You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.” – Joan Didion