This year, I quit my job to embark on a once in a lifetime adventure, travelling to 28 countries across five continents. I’ve made beautiful connections with people from all walks of life and have unexpectedly reconnected with school friends too.

50+ flights later and we’re finally at the finish line. Though I am sad that this wild ride has come to an end, I take with me a treasure trove of memories and unforgettable experiences that I will cherish forever. Here are some of my long-term travel observations:

1) You start being selective with the attractions you choose to visit. Part of this is due to cost, and part of this is because you’ve seen so much of the same or similar stuff already.
2) You start to miss having a routine, cooking your own meals and having somewhere to base yourself. Having a home to go back to suddenly seems like a huge luxury.
3) Travelling quickly is what depletes your budget along with your energy. You realise you are spending half a day in transit a couple of times a week. To lessen the burden on your mind and body, try to stay in one place for a minimum of two nights, ideally three.
4) Sometimes it can be hard to entertain yourself in times of boredom because you are limited in what hobbies you can enjoy. For example, I miss being able to pick up the guitar to jam and the feeling of piano keys beneath my fingers.
5) You start to long for more than just the fleeting travel connections. Even though they are wholesome and inspiring, it becomes tedious starting again every week. You want to build something deeper, but the situation doesn’t allow for it.
6) You start to miss working and having an income, colleagues, feeling like your work is contributing to something bigger than yourself.
7) You realise how capable you are after being faced with constant unknowns and coming out on top.
8) You reassess what’s important to you, and that can come with a sense of disorientation due to changing out of the person you know.
9) You become more intentional with money and become acutely aware of areas where you can cut back in day-to-day life.
10) Sometimes boredom and fatigue lead to mindless eating. When you’re too exhausted to explore, but don’t want to waste your time inside, you convince yourself that going from food place to food place counts as sightseeing. In reality, you’re just eating because you have nothing else to give.
11) There are a lot of people around thirty taking a career break to travel long term. Reconnecting with old high school friends has been an unexpectedly sweet side effect of posting on my stories. This was originally intended to provide proof of life and reassurance to my loved ones.
12) You will meet many personalities along your journey and every new interaction will reveal more of who you are. When dealing with difficult people, you will find yourself being more aware of how you choose to communicate. You really notice what role you play in group dynamics. I for one, am the connector and conversation starter.
13) You start to notice the magic fading when you jump from country to country without taking in the essence of the culture and customs, particularly across Europe. See this as a trial or taste test so that in future you know what countries you’ll come back to and explore more fully.
14) You realise that occasional moments of wonder are what make them special and memorable. Without knowing the relative boredom of day-to-day life, incredible things can start to feel like the norm. And once something becomes expected, it no longer feels as magical. It’s just routine newness. What a perfect oxymoron.
15) You start to feel different inside after seeing so much. Maybe the world of the people you know will remain the same in the period since you’ve left to pursue this dream, and there will be a chasm upon your return. That’s okay, we are all destined for different things and to pursue different dreams. That’s why meeting people who hold the same values as you is so important as you get older.
16) You don’t need to explain yourself or your decisions to strangers. You have permission to be exactly who you are, without caveat.

Sometimes it’s not about the length of a relationship that dictates the amount of time you need to grieve the loss of it. This one was profound. It tugged at your heartstrings and made promises of a beautiful future that was violently pulled away without remorse. You sensed he was intense and a little broken, but he was never yours to save. And so you destroyed yourself in the process of trying to learn how to treat his wounds.

The depth of the connection was undeniable but when he showed you his true colours, you chose to stay in the past; the happier period where you both dreamt of forever together. No relationship can thrive in an environment of uncertainty for too long and you knew you deserved more. You needed more than the fragments he was offering.

When someone’s actions don’t match up with their words, you need to ask yourself why. When they show you exactly who they are, you need to believe what you see. Each part of this story shows the many facets of the same person, and none can be viewed in isolation. You may have thought he was your person, but real love doesn’t come with conditions. Love doesn’t provoke anxiety. Most of all, love should feel safe, nourishing and warm.

I know this experience has tarnished your sense of self and in the aftermath, you’re feeling a little lost. But I promise it will heal with time. You are still the person you’ve worked hard to become, so don’t ever forget that. Be proud. Please be kind to yourself and know that there will come a time when you feel this strongly for another again. Keep working on yourself and know that you are enough. You are worthy, lovable, fucking incredible.

He will always remain a core memory of a whirlwind romance that was. That can never be taken away from you, and one day you’ll look back at it all with gratitude. For all the lessons you learned, for reviving the feelings you thought you’d never feel again, for showing you exactly what it is you want in a partner. You won’t settle for anything less in the future.

You were right to walk away, and the pain you feel now only means that you truly cared. That’s a beautiful thing. Stay positive, for this is a storm you don’t have to weather alone. You have the support of your friends and family to cushion whatever hardships come your way in this lifetime. You are whole exactly as you are, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. Remember, healing is never linear. Progress comes in the form of taking small steps towards your own happiness.

So take it one day at a time, and eventually you’ll wake up and the heartbreak will be replaced with calm. You’ll be ready to conquer the world again with eyes filled with wonder.

The past year has taught me so many invaluable lessons about myself, relationships, life and trauma.

One of the things I have been reminded of is how unpredictable people can be, and how long it takes to really get to know someone. Some days I still miss him and wish I’d been able to support him even while I was bleeding from all the holes he poked in me. I wish I was strong enough to maintain my space of calm, without becoming an anxious mess in response to his own deactivating strategies. I thought I was sure enough of myself as a person to not let my worth be affected by another but intimate relationships have a way of impacting you in profound and unexpected ways. The confusion is still there but I know to truly move on, I need to forgive and practice acceptance.

For me, that step is acknowledging that he wasn’t the person I thought he was and that our incompatibilities were too significant to bridge. I truly believe in my heart that none of his actions were malicious, and that a lot of the mixed signals he sent were a protective mechanism and trauma response to getting too close. I hope that one day we can be friends but I’ll leave it up to the universe to decide.

The people that know me best are the ones that inspired my decision to leave, and even though I’m back to square one, I know this presents opportunities for my future that are better suited to my happiness. I deserve more than what he was able to offer and to stay would have made me suffer. At the end of the day, I am a wanderer chasing wonder. Philisophically, it is important for me to have a partner who is growth-oriented, consistent and believes in the power of making choices. I want someone who is emotionally stable and equally fearless when it comes to taking chances, not someone who constantly thinks about the demise of everything. He exists out there somewhere and I truly believe that someday, we will cross paths.

I’ve put together a vision board for 2023 so I can maintain focus on the things I want to achieve and what is truly important to me. This year, I want to put myself first and learn as much as I can. I want to do nice things for people in hopes that they will pay it forward to others in turn. My contribution thus far has been giving away a free phone to someone in need and that felt really good.

This is the person I am. I am generous and warm, caring and supportive and I won’t let any bad experiences blacken that soft heart I pride myself on.

Happy new year everyone x

It’s an odd thing to consider that personal growth can be accelerated when you are forced to confront your limiting beliefs during moments of intense emotional experience. The past six months have catalysed a profound inner journey for me, where I feel I have learnt more in this short period than in the past ten years.

Sometimes you realise that these new revelations are in fact, things you’ve known for a long time but have never had to put into practice. And so the true value of the lesson lays dormant, its weight never being exacted on your conscience until you find yourself in the midst of the unknown.

A whole new meaning is then given to the phrases you’ve nonchalantly repeated as gospel; things that you’ve heard other wise souls say in some distant past. For the first time, it is felt.

I want to share some of the important lessons I’ve learnt with you:

1. Sometimes you meet people who are incompatible with your flavour of life. You may have arguments over differences in opinion and find that your worst selves are brought out during your interactions with one other. That doesn’t make you a bad person, it just means that they are not your people and that’s okay.
2. You can only control that which is within your control. Read that again.
3. Sometimes you have to seek your own truth from within, even if that means accepting you may never hear theirs. Give yourself the closure you deserve.
4. Do not loathe or fear that which forces you to reconsider your entire understanding of self. Instead, befriend the person or thing that has challenged your views, embrace them like an old friend and thank them for inspiring meaningful change within you.
5. Take every rejection as a blessing and protection from a future that was not meant to be.
6. Always keep the inner child within you alive, as she is the one who guards the realm of your dreams.
7. Always chase the things that make you truly happy so that one day when you’re old, you can be proud of everything you dared to try.
8. You alone reap the benefits of whatever decisions you make in life so go and follow that trail of wonder.
9. People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Don’t be saddened by relationships that are ephemeral in nature, for they brought magic to your life at one point in time. Be thankful.
10. Always be the truest version of yourself and keep your head held high. Do not stoop to other people’s levels when they exhibit toxic behaviour. Move on and have respect for your own boundaries.
11. You are worthy of whatever it is you seek in this world so go and live an extraordinary life.
12. Major change can be incredibly unnerving and is designed to be challenging. As such, it is completely normal to cling to the safety of what is known at first but eventually, you need both feet in the present to be able to experience the now in full.
13. Give yourself permission to really feel your feelings. Everything will be okay in the end, I promise.
14. Always keep a soft heart but arm yourself with tremendous mental fortitude. Remember, no one can take away something that you gave to yourself.
15. Regularly practice self-reflection through journalling, meditation or the like. It is an incredibly rewarding time investment that is nurturing to the mind, body and soul.
16. No joke is worth telling if it is at the expense of another person’s feelings. It is possible to be funny without ever being mean.
17. Whilst actions do speak louder than words, don’t forget to speak your truths and remind your loved ones of how much they mean to you.

4 October 2021

Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. — Alan Turing

My earliest memory is one where I am sitting in the front of a moped, with mum at the rear. We are travelling through the streets with groceries in tow and creating multiple lanes where there aren’t any. I am wearing a yellow face mask with a cartoon character emblazoned on it, but can’t recall exactly what that image was. It was a simple memory, and of no particular significance and yet retention of that has been deemed important by the ever mysterious brain. I don’t remember much of my birth to three years living in Taiwan. I imagine it was a time filled with love and not much else material. I reminisce on the scrumptious smells wafting throughout endless streets and the cacophony of sounds echoing through night markets. I wonder about the details of my home in Taiwan in Xin Dian. What colour were the walls? Did we have a car? How did we sleep?  It’s funny how we all say ‘oh how simple life was back then’ but at every life stage, that thought crosses one’s mind. Perhaps it is the beauty of hindsight that allows us to see the bigger picture behind what was. The very nature of hindsight requires that an afterthought has occurred, and is perhaps why we can never apply the same wise eyes to the present. That doesn’t detract from the experience though, maybe it adds to the beauty contained within our memories.

In 1997, we immigrated to Australia. Mum and dad were required to put down a large sum of money to the Treasury to guarantee our spot here – think of it as a bond payment if you will. It was refundable after a period of six or so years but raising the capital to begin with was no easy feat. Dad was an Air Force pilot in Taiwan in his late teens and all throughout his twenties (perhaps into his thirties). I always thought that he had the coolest job in the world, and it’s true what they say about dads being your heroes. I imagined him in his ‘la ba kou’, with his terrible fashion sense which has carried into his sixties, going on his first date with mum. A strong willed woman in her own right, she has been the heart and anchor of the family from day dot. I bet she rejected him the first time round – got to keep the lads on their toes right? It’s a story I’m yet to hear in full so for now, I’ll create my own imaginative rendition of their courting days.

The first few years in Australia were hard on our family. We were made up of three young kids and two intelligent parents whose hard earned qualifications carried no weight here. Australia wasn’t so multicultural back then, and so mum and dad looked for an area with a larger number of Asian people – Strathfield. Understandably one would look to a place of familiarity for comfort in a strange place. Mum started taking English lessons through the local church where she became good friends with this black lady. I wish I could recall more about her apart from her face, but I was only four at the time with nothing but old photos to guide me. Her face was kind and her spirit was warm and welcoming. She ended up being one of mum’s first friends here. I wonder what became of her?

Whenever I look back to this period of our family’s life, I am in immense awe of my parents’ courage to leave their life in Taiwan, and start anew in a foreign country with what little they had, and three young kids in tow. Their perseverance in the face of adversity has inspired me throughout my life, particularly as I make my way through my twenties. Imagine being so highly qualified in your field and unable to get a job with a pay rate commensurate with your experience just because of a language barrier. Imagine risking it all in hopes of chasing a better life for yourself and your kids. What strong will and determination that must have taken.