What a Difference a Year Makes

365 days with 24 little hours. So this time last year I was catching a black cab to Heathrow after saying a final teary goodbye to my dear dear friend on a sunny spring morn in Islington and feeling pretty stressed and sad and fearful. And now here I am across the other side of the world, living a completely different life, nearly ready to buy a house, happy and healthy and excited about the future. It is quite unbelievable what can be achieved in only one year, imagine what you could do in a lifetime?!

I read a great quote the other day by Richard Bach an American author that goes

"You've given up your whole life to be the person you are now. Is it worth it?"

Gets you thinking about the decisions that you make and are they the right ones, about personal responsibility and how everything that you do now will affect your life in the future. Well, made me think about that anyway! I would never change anything in my life because that's what has made me who I am today, and after everything that I've gone through, even the really hard stuff, I feel as though I can say with conviction that it is worth it, that life is definitely worth it.

Christ it's all getting a bit heavy up in here, so will finish on a lighter note with this fantastic song by my latest style icon which I have on heavy You Tube rotation at the moment, dedicated to all the amazing people that helped me make it to the place (geographically, psychologically and spiritually) that I am at today... thank you/ love you/ miss you

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Don't you love that song? All those crazy ch-changes in tempo and getting to imagine Dave jumping around in lycra and face paint and hopefully a big cloak (well that's how I think of him when I hear that song anyway!). He knew all about changes, and I do too after finishing up waitressing life in 'Straylia, holding yet another packing up of boxes-moving myself to another country-unpacking + crying ceremony, and getting settled back into the place where I started from after six calendar/ sixty lifetime years.

It's been quite some journey! I really really didn't think it would result in me deciding to wind up back in New Zealand at all, but thank goodness my beautiful country has unconditional love for me because I have to say I wasn't the most grateful citizen in recent years. I can't get over how beautiful it is (yes I am talking about you Russell), how friendly the bus drivers and call centre people are (particularly MAF), how unstressed I feel (maybe psychological rather than environmental influences going on there) and how awesome it is to be around my very old dear friends (not awesome that I had to leave all my other friends behind tho... come on teleporter research, COME ON!!!!).

And as with a period of change, it brings a time for reflection and reassessment of dreams and goals. When I left London it was my greatest desire to get out of office life, find an outlet for creative thought, open a store within two years and ensure I didn't develop a love affair with Seinfeld's sartorial pairing of choice. After nearly a year post-move, I have found that my thoughts keep heading towards settling into a house rather than a business. As a word I don't particularly like "settling". It kind of implies that you are not getting exactly what you want and it has all sorts of connotations associated with it that I have been rallying against for probably far too long! But I just googled the word and here is the definition that popped up

1. To discontinue moving and come to rest in one place

I love the sound of coming to rest in one place! I'm tired of moving, of starting over and buying new jars of herbs, of not knowing which box has the kimono in it and feeling like I'm intruding on peoples quality time. To assist in my mission to come to rest, I have decided rather than heading down the fun and satisfy, but hard and uncertain road of investing in a brick n mortar store, I’m going to go for the less daring but safer and more settled route of investing in a home that I can call my own and do Fortune Favours as an aside to full time working for the man (or woman as the case is for the moment).

So big ch-changes but all great ones and lots of fun times ahead. Not sure if anyone would agree that a mortgage is fun, but if it means that I can have a space to permanently hang a hammock and fence off an area for a retired pet greyhound and my friends kiddies so they don't escape, it sounds exciting to me.

PS goodbye terrifying countdown clock, you have backwards counted your last second.