The tale of two half-lives

I arrived in Sydney reeking of heartbreak and hopelessness. I was hurting, I needed to feel good about myself, and I thought Australia could give it to me. My impromptu trip to my second 'home' here on the Northern Beaches was an attempt to mend a broken heart, and in some ways it has done that. Time to myself, away from the everyday pressures of life, has given me time to process and come to terms with the loss of someone that my heart was desperately holding on to.

But despite the cathartic closure I have found, there still remains a niggling unsettledness in me and my time here. I couldn't put my finger on it for a while, but now I understand. For the past four years I have made my way to Australia, each year saving all my money and pining for the life I have made here.  For four years I have yearned and wished and clawed at Australia. But in those years, in trying to be here and too in being here, my life has remained static. I have travelled all these miles, year after year, and yet I have been standing still. And that is no way to live a life.

Actively avoiding romance and consciously being closed to non-Australian love, in order to avoid complications, has left me colder and harder than I have ever been. It's made me even more cynical, even more indignant and even more stubborn. And deep down I know what we all know: that everyone on this earth just wants to be loved. That I want to be loved too. In willfully thrusting myself into this sticky limbo-life, I have been keeping it out. What a ridiculous trade off to make.

I have been closing the door on love, in order to try and open a door to a life in Australia. But when that door to Australia opens, and I really, really look at it, I find that the room is empty - it has nothing to offer me. And so I am left with neither. Standing in a corridor of doors that won't open, all alone.

I'm not sure what I was looking for here. Maybe it was just something different to my life in the UK, maybe it was the idea of being on the other side of the world. Maybe it was an escape from the fact that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, so pining after a country was easier than admitting I didn't have a fucking clue what to do next. Whatever the reason was, there is nothing left for me here.

I have never felt truly at home in the UK, and coming to terms with the fact that my home isn't in Australia either is scary. But it's better to know and be able to keep searching, than to accept a life that I don't truly love.

So now the time has come to move on, to close a chapter that has pretty much ruled my life since 2013, to accept that I can't find something that isn't there. The friends and memories I have made here are beautiful beyond words, and thinking about leaving this place behind breaks my heart, but Australia doesn't have what I need.

I cannot go on living two half lives, for two half lives do not make me whole.

And whilst I am truly sad to walk away from this part of my life, I am filled with excitement for the adventures that await in my search for 'home'.

JoJo

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Take Me To The Sea, It Knows Me Well

Since being back home I've felt a little colder. Not due to the twenty degree temperature drop, but to my hardened sense of self. I know that this is a product of a somewhat emotionally difficult year, and it unnerves me. It makes me like myself less.

I hate feeling that coldness inside, it's icy touch creeping all over my little heart. I have this feeling that maybe I will never really be the same again, that this is one of those things that happens as you grow up that makes the world seem a little less easy, that makes life seem a little bit more fragile. I have always been resilient, in the sense that I have always been able to see the other side, to know that the other side is inevitable. And I still feel that. I just haven't crested the monstrous hill yet.

The months following my return have been so bloody busy that I have hardly had a single evening to myself. I've crammed my days with work, and my evenings too. I've been running and going to classes and applying for jobs. Recently, due to a project reaching it's climax, I have found myself with more time on my hands. And I've realised that all that busyness was a somewhat calculated plan on my behalf - if I was busy, then I wouldn't have to face what was stirring up inside me. Now I can see that the dark thing that was once an iceberg is still near-freezing water, burning at my insides. And now that I am forced to look at it, I'm scared it will flare up again, spurred on by the cold winds of my focus. I'm scared that it will bring down all the work I have done, piecing myself together.

I have never been so afraid of my own darkness. I have never wanted to run away from something, but I really, really don't want to spend any more time trying to defrost. It exhausts me, it takes my breath from me.

Things in Cardiff are slow, in a hectic, busy way. In an everyone-rushing-about way. I find it harder to meditate here.In an unrewarding way. I find myself checking my phone instead of checking my feelings. I find myself surrounded by consumerism, waves of sales and plastic bags and statement hats.

All I really want is heavy, powerful, pure waves of water rushing and crashing over and around me.

The water and I have this special thing. It's something I think people who have grown up around water share. I went back to Pembrokeshire on the weekend and I took a chilly dip in the icy sea, my swimming costume clinging to my goose-bumped skin, the wind rushing around me, pinking my cheeks. I only swam for a few minutes, but I felt instantly calm. Instantly cleansed. Instantly closer to myself. My soul came home and I was able to see through the fuzzy, white noise that has been plaguing my mind for so long.

I whispered a thank you to the water and got out. I changed and sat in a cave watching the water gently stroke the sand, like a lover stroking a cheek. I was able to think in linear. I was able to stare and I settled within. I was able to get lost in the magic of that enormous being.

My whole body buzzed for hours afterwards, and I remembered how much I needed the sea. How much I was magnetised and hypnotised by it.

I am returning to Pembrokeshire, to the sea, where I can submerge my body in the water, submit my mind to it's power.
Because life just feels better with it by my side.

JoJo