I have just spent the weekend away with family in the wine region. I always love this place during winter. It’s green, fresh and quiet. The vines may be bare, but the grass is lush. The clouds may be grey, but the sea is still gleaming blue. The sunrises are still beautiful and the sunsets still tell me goodnight, albeit earlier than in the summer. However this occasion was different. This time, I arrived in the same old town as a different woman. The first time I visited Dunsborough was over 16 years ago, I was a girl. I had a lot of hopes and dreams for the future, none of which I had yet lived out. Now, I am someone who has achieved my dreams… lots of them. The latest of which was to move to France. Just under a week ago, I received my visa and this week I will leave to make my dream into reality. To start my new life in France – to indeed make myself at home, elsewhere.
For the last three years, I have been preparing to apply. I have written my business plan out over and over again, each time with a new idea or a new take on how I’d like my life to look. I tried on lots of different roles, and I am sure that I will continue to shapeshift in the future too – maybe just a little less than I have before. In order to get to this point, I have shed a lot of old layers. Cares and worries that had held me back from simply stepping out and being who I wanted to be. The opinions of other people, my own opinion of myself, my ranking in society, comparisons in intelligence, beauty and skill – they are still present in my life, but they no longer sting me. They no longer haunt me like a shadow or a dark cloud. They’re no longer things I run or stress myself out to keep up with. I am the centre of my path, they’re just the background music. The little touches of drama and colour that make my life interesting, but do not direct my actions. Looking back, I can see why now had to be the time that I was ready to make the decision to leave, and not then. I even hesitated at the very moment I was filing the application, I took a few minutes to think it over before I handed over what had given me my living for the last decade: my passport. But I decided that now was the right time, and I am glad that I did.
So, this is the beginning of the next chapter for me. And I’m really happy that I can share and document this experience on my blog with you all. As Confucius was once thought to have said: Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues. I am not a famous writer, and I probably will never be, but I know that there are some people who want to hear what I have to say. I write this blog for them. In fact, I write this blog for me – because I want to remember what it is that I thought, felt and did at such a big turning point in my life. And I am proud of what I have achieved so far… more than that, it has been really fun. I will continue writing, and I know that my love for the simple act of expressing myself in words will take me through. As it always has. But is this really humility? C. S Lewis once said: A humble person will not be thinking about humility: they will not be thinking about themselves at all… if anyone would like to acquire humility… the first step is to realise that one is proud… if you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed. With this in mind, I think that perhaps the words of Confucius can be stated in a different way: love is the solid foundation of all virtues. Love is the acceptance of who we are,: good and bad, success and failure, ugly and beautiful. I am all of those things.
And this is the foundation from which I plan to start my next chapter. The old is gone but remembered, and the new is simultaneously here and on the road ahead. In fact, I have been visited by that single crow again these days. It seems that Yatagarasu likes long goodbyes, or maybe he will be a companion for me in life as I keep growing and learning new things. Either way, it’s a funny little sign for me that I’m on the right track. And sometimes we need that. When things are tough, we need anything we can get in order to just keep going. I’m happy that I did. My mind now turns to more practical matters… packing, organising papers and saying goodbyes. And goodbyes are never easy. Unfortunately, I cannot live in two places at once… but I can put all of my heart into my life in France. And I can’t wait to take you with me on this new kind of adventure.
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