Going Tidal

There are rolling moments.
There are vastly significant occasions.
There are those waves of unspeakable sadness.

Three things happened in the last two months that changed the tide of my life. Maybe you can take something from this if you are looking at changing direction.

10 Days in Surry Hills
Around a month ago, I spent ten days in Surry Hills. It used to be my neighborhood. Luckily, I am gifted with a good friend who lives there at the moment and is willing to tolerate me stealing her couch for periods of time. There is only one rule - Don't leave things in the way of the path to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Oops, I broke that rule this time. Sorry A.

During my time there, I got to see my closest friends multiple times. It was also my chance to meet a lot more new people and walk away with a new friend or two. There were a few people who I clicked with and quite a few who either bored the hell out of me or ended up being not what they promised to be. Oddly enough, being the kind of person that is "what you see is what you get" means that I often expect that of everyone else. Of course, this is not as naive as it sounds. I guess, I expect the best of people and like to respect that they are who they say they are.

Those ten days changed the way I saw the world, people in it and most importantly... myself...

If you go out and meet a whole lot of people and walk away with one friend then you've done brilliantly.


Selling the Lawn
The second world rocking thang was the lawn sale that Mum and I put on. It took three days to set up and 5 hours for the neighbors and crazy lawn-sale-aholics to clean us out. It was not the selling that changed me. I mean, getting rid of all that stuff I'd accumulated over the last decade was freeing but it wasn't quite that. It was the Friday night before the sale that did it. Unpacking the Christmas decorations that I'd collected and been given as presents over the years was bloody difficult. There were tears... gasps... and finally a self-inflicted bitch slap. That is when I learned another thing about life...

It's just stuff. It can be replaced. It doesn't make you who you are.



Sporting Analogies Aside
The third was a moment. It came and went before I even realised it had happened. After coming back from a night of indoor beach volleyball, feeling awesome from the exercise, socialising and endorphin rush, Mum pointed something out. She said "You always liked sport. You were always good at it."

That is when I realised that I had surrounded myself with people who didn't like sport (individual or team) and it became too anti-social for me to continue with it. Now that person is not around, I can go back to enjoying having an active and social outlet that suits me.

The realisation here was...

Remember what made you happy when you were younger and go back to doing that. We are more honest with ourselves as children than we ever will be as adults.


That is it. Those three things helped me find direction. Now I haz it.