Let’s ramble…

When I left Australia I wasn’t in the best of places to be honest. I was approaching the half way mark of my trip and was beginning to struggle with the idea of continuing on the way I had been for the next 6 months. Having your days jam packed with activities and things to do is exciting but after a while you just start to wish for a day off. Travelling becomes your job, and just like any job, it’ll become one you start to resent if you try to do too much too fast. Which is why I was so glad to have some “time off” in Melbourne. We still explored and went on day trips and did touristy things, but the difference was we had a base to do these things from. The stress of finding accomodation for every night and transport to the next place wasn’t on our radar and what you’re left with is just being able to fully enjoy the place you’re in. To just live somewhere and have fun.

With all that said and done though, at the end of the day you’re still “travelling”. You might be shopping at the same supermarkets and starting to buy clothes depending on the changing seasons (Melbourne is COLD fyi…I had to actually set out and find something other than silly little tops and skirts just so that I could survive…) but you’re still not at home. Not really. The accents are still foreign and you’ll still be subconsciously converting the money in your head to your own currency you earned it in. But you’ll also start adapting to the local way of life and picking up the little phrases they use – in Australia just shorten every word in a sense that to one syllable and you’re half way to Aussie slang – lazy bams!

But anyway, even though I was technically “living” in Melbourne, and had been in Australia by this point for a little under 3 months, I knew it wasn’t permanent and for the longest time, that unsettled feeling just wouldn’t shift. You see, I knew it was all temporary and I couldn’t fully allow myself to be settled, because I knew it couldn’t last forever.

I’d reached a kind of lull where I seemed to just be longing for things at home that normally I wouldn’t even think twice about if I was there. I think I even started to irritate people going on about haggis and diet irn bru, and how the weetabix (or weetbix as they call it there) was just plain nasty and “nothing like back home”. And aside from annoying other people with my complaints, I actually started to annoy myself because it’s not as if it’s my first time being away and feeling homesick would be a natural response?

I moved out of my family home when I was 17 to study in Edinburgh – I couldn’t work a washing machine or an oven and I couldn’t even nip to the pub after uni because I wasn’t even legal to have a drink yet. So why now, did I feel a longing for a place I seem to have spent the last 5 years of my life trying to run away from?

I’ve done a lot in my life so far, and as many people tell me, I’ve seen and done more in my 22 years than most people do in their lives. I’ve always been an antsy little sh*t. Ask my mum. When my brother was asking for doodles to colour in, I was handing her a notebook (while she was driving) asking for a page of sums and having a tantrum when the long division wasn’t hard enough…

So I’ve always been proactive, I like the feeling of achievement and knowing I’ve accomplished something worthwhile. And I don’t like sitting on my heels for too long either. I get bored and restless, looking for new ways to entertain myself and keep my mind moving. I was so difficult as a child the family clinic gave my mum MENSA books and told me I was gonna become Prime Minister one day…there was nothing wrong with me. I was just…bored.

Even now, as a (half-way-there) adult I feel like not much has changed. I’m still antsy. I’m still an annoying little sh*t. But I don’t rely on anyone to keep me amused anymore. For me, travelling isn’t something I need to do to check a box so that I can say I’ve done it. I’m doing it to literally find out who the hell I am and what I want to do for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll find it, maybe I won’t. But I know I wouldn’t have been content jumping straight into a graduate scheme like many people do straight out of university. A lot of the time I question whether the degree I chose was actually my own choosing. Did I even choose to go to university or was it one of those things that was the “done thing” and I followed along mindlessly without question?

I don’t regret my university choice, or my degree. In fact I think it’s the best (and hardest) thing I’ve ever done. The sense of pride alone for getting through a triple degree at one of the worlds top universities will never cease to amaze me. I did that. And if I can do that…I honestly feel like there’s nothing I can’t do.

This blog is a filler post. I’m not sure where it’s gonna go, maybe I’ll add a new category to my site and call it “ramblings” but I’m enjoying writing again. It’s how I know I’m in a much better place in my own head. Because I can put words on paper (or into the notes in my phone, whatever) and I don’t feel like it’s a chore. It’s actually fun again.

I’ve had a few people message and ask if I’m alright because I haven’t been writing much. I’m fine. I’m more than fine actually. I’m so bloody fine it’s unreal. I’m living my life the way I want to, maybe for the first time ever ? Who knows. I don’t think I was living someone else’s life before, it’s not like that. I just felt like I was sort of on autopilot for the longest time that looking back on it, I feel like I’ve just cleared my head after daydreaming. I’m back in the present somehow and the fact I’m questioning my own decisions is actually a step in the right direction for me. I’m more aware and conscious of the choices I make and debating with myself about how I choose to live.

So that’s what I’m doing. This is where I’m at. I’m making choices. Wrestling with ideas I’ve never had before. Thinking about the future and where my life is heading. I’m exploring. Laughing. Hiking. Running about daft. EATING. Drinking too much coffee and just choosing LIFE.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m writing my own sums.