Last Summer

Last Summer

The smell of a little cafe where the barista knows your order (“capp, no sugar?”)

Driving to work on a Saturday morning through the deserted streets

Driving home from a different work at midnight on a Tuesday; the streets just as deserted

 Screaming across the kitchen table at your helpless mother how much I fucking hate my life!

Crying yourself not to sleep, but to anxious, sickening wakefulness

Being greeted with a genuine ‘good morning!’ as you walk into work

Going for a job interview when all you want to do is curl up in bed and never venture into the real world again

Feeling physically sick just seeing a place you used to go together

Debating the value of leaving – for real

Reigniting a dormant passion

Realising that some jobs you never expected to take can not only teach you valuable things, but also be thoroughly enjoyable

Walking into work and everybody saying ‘oh my god, what’s wrong?’ (it’s written all over your face)

Getting so drunk the night becomes a blur

Staying in other people’s beds; waking up with the knowledge that that won’t fix it and now you merely hate yourself

Waking up from nightmares not sure whether they were real or not, whether you’d prefer for them to be or not

Rekindling old friendships

Discovering a liking for children, and a sure-fire way of interacting with them

Broadening friendship groups (and then narrowing them again, by choice or default)

Failing

Succeeding

Sobbing through a throat raw from screaming that you can’t deal with this anymore, that you have to see a doctor or a professional or anybody

The realisation that that was probably one of the best decisions you’ve ever made

Seeing him out without you and breaking down completely all over again

And again

…and again

Realising that despite all the help and all the progress that you can’t make a life here, not now

Cutting off contact, re-establishing it and then cutting it off again

Riding your horse in the river on a warm summer’s day, laughing genuinely for the first time in a long while as he paws water high enough that it splashes your face

Wrapping your hands around a warm coffee brewed by your favourite barista as you sit outside and wait for it to be time to go to work

Sipping the same type of coffee as you tell people that you’re leaving

Letting old mentors know that you’re pursuing your dream

The first Christmas without him – painful, raw, agonising

Running to mum’s arms on Christmas Eve when the tears just won’t stop

A taboo relationship with a convenient person that makes you realise that sometimes affection springs out of the most unlikely of places

The disagreement with your best friend; the first actually serious one you’ve had

Writing, re-writing, emailing, researching, applying, paying, researching some more

Taking the leap even though you’re not sure where it’ll take you and even if it’s more flight than adventure at that moment

Making the most of the beach while you can

Reading updates for uni and realising that you don’t even need to worry about that

Feeling excited, and then disenchanted, and then excited all over again

Choosing a date

Booking a flight

Saying goodbye

Arriving…

For a brand new summer on the other side of the world.

For When I Forget

This is my backyard.

This is sunrise…

…and sunset

This is the (fairly) local winery

This is the good weather…

… and the bad

This is one of the Real Life Pokemon I’ve discovered

This is the face I get to see every day

These are the amazing people I get to spend so much time with

This is the face that neighs every time I go to his paddock

This is a typical photo

This is a normal Saturday night

This is two and a bit hours away

This is my home

and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

One Reason I’m Not Struggling to be Happy

One of the things that really does make me happy is reading a lot of lists and self-help books/blogs/articles, and coming across many different manifestations of ‘you’re not happy because you have abandoned your dreams’. It’s expressed in many different ways – to be happy pursue your passions; to find happiness find what you truly enjoy and work towards that being the focus of your life; to stop being unhappy start doing things that you dream about. Ultimately they’re all saying the same thing – a lot of people these days are controlled by societal expectations, perceived financial restrictions, a lifetime of seeing what is ‘supposed’ to happen (school, university, job, work, marry, kids, retire), such that they abandon their ideals and their passions, and pass over the idea of making their passion their life as fanciful.

And that’s where I was, initially. I was at uni in a course that, yeah, I enjoyed, but I was really doing it because that’s what was expected of the dux of the school, even if the school was a relatively small country public one. I was doing it because I ‘knew’ that I needed money in order to make my life what I wanted.

A combination of things happened. I broke up with my first love; I saw someone not all that close to me break free of society’s expectations and do what they were actually passionate about; I read a couple of books. All of a sudden, I decided to take the plunge.

And here I am. I’m twenty-three days away from starting what can only be described as my dream job, at what can only be described as a dream work environment. The last few months have been tumultuous at best but suddenly things are falling into place. I’ve persisted and worked hard and researched and waited, and now it’s happening.

I’m pursuing my dreams. I am throwing off the expectations and taking a plunge into something that may end up with me broke and homeless in two years. Or it may end up with me becoming a professional athlete. Or, the middle ground, I may end up with a career I adore in an industry that could better be described as my life.

So all those lists, all those ‘you could be happy if…’s – there’s one thing on those that I can tick off.

I can tick off just go for it.

I won’t give up.

You can beat me down; you can make me question myself, hate myself, doubt myself; you can crush me with words or silences; you can nag me, berate me, hate me; you can forget me or forgive me; you can keep me hanging for months or let me go with a single word.

You can call me selfish, arrogant, slutty, whorish, deserving, stupid, annoying, bitch, nobody, nerd, hopeless pointless worthless.

You can punish me or persecute me. You can lie to me and libel me. You can ignore me or ill-treat me. You can abuse me and abhor me.

You can act your age, or you can act like a child.

You can do your best to break me down. You can do your worst.

I won’t give up.

New Beginnings

I want to write, but I’m at a loss for words. I want to speak about where I’m going in life and what I’m planning to do, but I’m sincerely scared about jinxing it. I want to talk about being positive and changing my outlook on life and changing a philosophy and challenging everyday views, but I don’t really think I’m quite healed enough to be an authority on the subject. Even just my opinion will merely be a tangled amalgamation of other people’s work.

I want to be honestly happy with where I am in life. I want to wake up every day excited about what the sun will bring with it. I want to be able to do that now, rather than waiting on an arbitrary point in the future – one that will come, but that I can’t be sure when. I want life to be good here, rather than having to run away to find it.

I want so many things. Most of all I want to be gone so that I can start everything that I say I will start when I leave.

But then – why wait?

Why not start now?