“So you’re just going to be cruising around?” he said, a close friend trying to get their head around the journey I was soon to embark on.
“Kind of,” I replied, but as soon as the words came out I thought it is not that at all. It feels way more than that, and it got me thinking.
When I was down in Nelson earlier in the year I had the briefest of chats with someone and they said “ah another soul searcher,” and then he paused and said “no you’re not, I can tell, you’ve already done that!” He was right, SO many of the dots had been connected and questions answered. So no, these travels weren’t about cruising or soul searching.
“Maybe you’re leaving to find where you belong?” someone else had offered when I first start talking about this journey. A wise lady, as she was unaware I moved about six different times in the short time I had been in NZ, but “No,” I replied, “the village I have just left, living there exactly a year, was the first place/community I feel I belonged in, maybe ever.
“What if you don’t like it?” someone else said when I was packing stuff up to give away. “Then I will find somewhere to live again and another charity shop will benefit!” I wasn’t committing myself to a year looking after a remote lighthouse, with a boat dropping me off and picking me up a year later! So it wasn’t cruising, soul searching, finding a place to belong or committing myself to exile, what was this journey all about?
The words that keep coming in to my head when I think about it, is that it is “just something I have to do, it just feels right.”
When I came away travelling from the UK, the idea was to do things differently, to get out of the rat race and be more free. A few months ago I realised I had got myself in exactly the same position just on the other side of the world.
However I also believe that now is the right time for many different reasons, probably with ‘who I am now’, being top of the list. Quite different to the person I was when I first came over. This journey feels aligned, aligned with who I am, my values and how I want to live my life.
So to me this journey is a celebration, a celebration of who I am, of freedom and is about saying yes to life.
Destination unknown – will be going where the wind and opportunities take me. I will be housesitting, wwoofing (swapping accommodation and food for help), coaching, and open to experiences that I align with and that I can say ‘YES’ to!
