Date: 14/12/16
Time: 8:27am
Where I am : On a train somewhere between Southampton and Weymouth
What I’m listening to: The Overtones ‘You’ve lost that loving feeling’ and anything else that Lachie sings lead on because THAT VOICE (insert heart eye emoji)
Hullo to you my lovely reader. It’s been a while hasn’t it. I hope this finds you all well and full of festive cheer. Christmas time, as a lot of you know, is one of my favourite times of the year – or at least the build up to it. Christmas day is normally a bit of a let down – everyone eats and drinks until they hate themselves and then there is an argument over who cheated at Monopoly. This year though, I am not as in to it as normal and that may be because I have something bigger to focus on.
January 1st.
No no, not that ‘new year, new me’ tosh.
January 1st I’m leaving the homeland for adventures with no return date.
Solo.
Alone.
All by myself. (you have to sing that one)
Am I excited? Yes.
Am I crazy? Most definitely.
Am I scared? Hell yes, but as someone once told me – if your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.
Doing the Australia work/travel thing is something that I have been talking/ dreaming about for 7 years now. Yep. SEVEN years. Almost a decade. It’s been 5 years since my old boss Mrs T (who currently resides there) told me to get my butt over there. “Give me a few years” I said… 5 years later…oops. There was always something in the way – there was the epic summer of ’13 in the States, then there was my sister’s wedding. Then I was petrified something would happen to my Grandad and I wouldn’t be here – October 2014 saw that horror realised. Then my sister got pregnant, my friend Amy got engaged and wanted me to write for the wedding and be in the wedding party… after that I ran out of excuses. They were all excuses too – the things I listed there (all bar the American Summer) would have happened regardless of me being in England or not. I could have gone and come back for those things but the truth is, I wasn’t brave enough to go. I was so used to relying on other people to keep me company, to take care of me and guide me that I would never have survived travelling alone. The loneliness would have killed me.
Now I figure, feck it. You can be lonely no matter where you are, so where better to be lonely than on a beach in Aus whilst topping up your vitamin D levels? Of course there is the possibility that I will not like it, I may find that the grass isn’t greener and home really is where the heart is. I’ve said for the last few years now, the more I travel the more I realise that London is the best city in the world – and it is right on my doorstep. Maybe I am silly for jumping ship across the world and leaving that behind. However, the beauty of the year 2017 is that I can come back whenever I want.
My visa is currently 6 months, with the option to stay on a work/travel visa in Aus for up to 2 years. The majority of my friends seem to think that I won’t come back – as my friend Amy put it “You’ll either hate it and be back within a week, or you’ll love it and we’ll never see you again”. It’s true, there rarely is grey area with me in anything I do. The idea that I may not come back probably goes someway to explaining why, when I talk to people, it feels like I’m dying “Oh I need to see you before you go!” “I can’t believe you’re not going to be here” and so on and so forth. I’m not dying people, I’m just going to see what the land down under has to offer for a wee while. Calm yourselves. Of course it’s nice people want to see me (I like being liked) but I don’t like a fuss and I feel that there is massive ‘fuss’ potential in this move, if that makes any sense? Probably not, I’ve had about 90 mins sleep in the last 24 hours so I apologise if it doesn’t make sense.
Truth be told I don’t know what is going to happen when I am away. I don’t know if I will love or hate it. I don’t have a plan on how long I will be there because of this. Maybe I’ll end up somewhere else. Who knows what could happen? So long as I am happy and healthy I’ll go wherever the wind takes me. The uncertainty is part of the adventure and, I may as well do it now because, why not? To quote the great philosopher Drake “YOLO”.
YOLO, that’s the motto.
xoxo
Micks
P.S if y’all have any recommendations for me of what to do/see in Aus then by all means let me know! I’d love to hear them.
The Girl with the Backpack 