Adjusting To A New Life

And so I start again. I left a job, a city, a life behind and exchanged it all for a new place where nothing is familiar yet it feels closer to home. The green trees, the grass, the birds, the sand, the sea waves welcomed me. This place has been coming to me in my dreams and visions and now I’m here, it’s real, it’s pure and beautiful, it’s where I’m supposed to be for now.

Moving is scary and unsettling. There is nothing to hold onto. You pack your stuff and take it with you and even your items seem to feel out of place until they forget where they were before and finally settle in, as if they’d always been here, as if this had always been their home.

There are comforts from the city I miss. I miss the big libraries full of thousands of books. I miss the shops where you can buy in bulk. I miss the familiar faces. I miss the art and the activism. But that’s all. My place was no longer there. My heart wasn’t there anymore.

My heart doesn’t seem to be in this blog either. I have been working on other projects that haven’t seen the light yet. And I'm still processing all these life changes, processing my dog’s death, which shattered me to pieces. This year has given me a lot to handle but strangely it seems to be going really fast. Poof! End of October. I haven’t posted here for three months. The three months I’ve spent dealing with everything.

I’ll keep this post short because there’s no purpose to it beyond saying, hey, I’m here, I’m still alive. Life is what happens between blog posts and social media posts. You’ll hear from me again, I hope. Perhaps when I throw one of my projects out into the world, like a bird teaching their offspring to fly.

For now, silence.

Popular posts from this blog

What My 30s Have Taught Me: The Magic of Presence

Image
It seems like yesterday that I turned 30. I celebrated that birthday alone, but I wasn't lonely. I took myself out for lunch after work and ordered a piece of cake. “It's my birthday”, I said, smiling at the woman who owned the small vegan café. She sang happy birthday as she brought that unforgettable mango cake. “I've cut you a big piece”. She was smiling too. I think back on that moment now that I'm slightly closer to the threshold of 40 than the threshold of 30. I remember how happy I was to start this decade. I've met many people in their late 20s who were horrified at the idea of turning 30, but I embraced that age feeling the shift that it sparked within me. My 20s were learning years, healing years. My 20s were full of mistakes and lessons. And even though I still make mistakes and hold similar fears, my third decade feels like a gift. In the last months, I've had a lot of time and mental space to ask myself why that is. As autumn progressed, I felt my ...
Read more

Every Life Counts: I Rescued A Double-Positive Cat

Image
I saw him during one of my walks. I was going in one direction and, suddenly, for no reason at all, I changed course and there he was. Whether it was fate or pure chance, when he looked at me and meowed, I simply couldn't look away. He was in very bad condition. Too thin, covered in dirt, fleas and flea eggs; a thread of drool hanging from his mouth, which was missing quite a few teeth. He was extremely friendly and kept asking for cuddles. He had clearly been domesticated but everything indicated he had been on his own for a long time. I had to make a plan. The next day, I bought a cat carrier and canned food to try to catch him. All the neighbours in the area watched as I encouraged him to step inside the carrier with the help of some food. "Why are you trying to catch him?", a woman asked. "He's sick." "I know", I said. "That's why." "You want to cure him?" "I'm going to try." She thought he had a tumour an...
Read more

Are We Humanising Animals? An Animal Lover's Perspective

Image
I often hear people complain that some animal lovers are "humanising animals". I agree to some extent. Some people don't let their dogs be dogs. They don't let them run and roll on the grass or socialise with other dogs, or they treat them like a human baby rather than a member of their own species with their own particular needs. In the case of wild animals , they assign the wrong meaning to their expressions, like when they think dolphins or monkeys are smiling (they don't smile like we do). But I've come to realise these people's definition of humanisation differs from mine most of the time. What they call humanising, I call treating   animals with the care and respect they deserve. And so they will get offended at the suggestion that members of other species have emotions as if emotions were exclusively human. They will get offended at the sight of a sick dog enjoying walks inside a pram as if being sick meant life is over for them. They will get offen...
Read more