Stop, Go, Listen...

It’s amazing really, all the small twists and turns and decisions that I made, well before I even knew I was going to explore the idea of luxuriating in a ‘Gap Year’. The choices that line up, one after the other, many tiny small ones that lead you to a moment of your life which is unrecognisable and a completely different direction, to which I ever thought I would travel down. There’s so many tiny happenings, shifts, advice and knowing’s, that come into awareness and consciousness, even if briefly that commands a response or action, that lead to rather large manoeuvrings and outcomes. Other’s I knew to be extremely momentous and I knew that I was making them because they physically hurt and then some well happened automatically. The subconscious has already made a decision, based on past experiences or recurring patterns in my life, filed deep down in that filing cabinet hidden within, and so they seem, that they are just made. Sometimes I believe the universe took over, someone would say something that would stick in my mind, words would have momentous meaning and would be on rewind in my brain, until action was taken, or a vision of times up ahead, happier times, along a road home, which would make me smile, and off I would go, reacting and making choices and changing the course of my life and others in the process. After long consultation with friends and family, pacing the tiled floor of a house long lost, ponderings, looking teary eyed into the clouds, the tree lines, accessing, debating and then eventually, the decisions unfolded. Never ever sure they were right or wrong. They just were decisions that I made that led me finally, to announce that I was going to have a ‘Gap Year’.

I wrote a lot in my journals during this time and I could see the unfolding of some choices that I made that led me to leave my beautiful friends, family, home, the place I worked and move to NSW. Back home. To my roots. Never easy and with many different emotions arising to complicate my return. But first the story of how I began the slow process of enlightenment that woke me up, like a light globe and steer me onto the long drive home. Strangely it involved a car. The biggest unfolding of my journey within, was instigated by a car. So symbolic and obvious.

It's funny what you remember when you find yourself by yourself. I remember a birthday card that a friend of mine brought me. This card had a picture of an older lady on it, she was driving a VW Kombi, she was smiling and looked so adventurous and happy. My friend said that she could see me doing something like this old lady. I did at the time think of my partner and wonder about him in the passenger seat, but the old lady had no passenger and now neither do I now. It only took this little card and the memory of it to pursue this dream. The wide-open road.

When I was younger, I always fancied being free and travelling the highway and backpacking and I saw myself often in a VW Kombi. I never did go down this road, because it was instilled in me that I needed to find a job, go to university, become a good citizen. Don’t buy that Kombi Van they cost too much. Many times, I was lead down a path of normal and conformity because of the fear of the unknown, without any thought of what really would make my soul sing. Now when I’m told ‘that’s a little outside the box’, I smile and pursue the object of my dream even more. As I was saying this card placed into my head, somewhere in that filing cabinet of my sub conscious, that my journey forward needed to be in a VW Kombi. This time when I was told that they would be expensive to run and repair, I didn’t listen. This was not the time to do normal. I had to step far outside of it and run wildly and flailing my arms and screaming, this is now my life.

Journal entry 31/8/21

I feel compelled to write now, about my distraction, maybe a distraction from the never-ending emotional ups and down’s that a separation after 23 years of relationship brings. I have been searching for a van and perhaps in finding a van, and having it set up nice, I can just travel and find that spark again, that has recessed so far within me and confused and intertwined with MR X that I don’t really know anymore who I am, what do I want and what my super goddess power is. I will be confronted with making decisions, with loneliness, stepping out of my introvert comfort zone and interact with strangers. I will challenge myself and invite people to come and share my food, my teas, my sounds and sing. I will read poetry and explore everything that I love, but have fear expressing. The fear of not being good enough, intelligent, funny, witty…just not being enough is so powerful, that every day as I day dream about Ruby Love Bug coming my way, I retreat into myself and ask what the hell am I doing…I can’t do this, what if the road is steep and windy, what if I get tired in-between towns and have to stop…fear…shutting me down…it’s nice here in my house, that luckily through this separation, I can stay here for the time, until circumstances change again which inevitably, they will. That’s the most certain thing isn’t it change (and just writing that now it has hit me) OMG I’m separated. Someone fell out of love with me. WTF. Now I have to feel into my heart to find direction and live my life. I can’t just be taken along for the ride and have someone by my side to live my life for me. Ha who ever thought to be happy and truly live your life, you have to live it yourself. A moment of realisation of that I lost myself in my relationship. I suppose it most definitely happens, compromises are made, and then another and another, then you get to a point where you don’t care you are just so happy you are with your loved one. It became so stifling that I wasn’t no longer the person that my man fell in love with. As I felt his energy leave me, I floundered, I fought, I tried with all my might to hold on and some of it wasn’t pretty, but fear surrounded me of abandonment and being alone. And then KAPOW, it ends. Then there’s the calmness, the eye of the storm so to speak, and you know you have this and KAPOW another wave of fear flings itself out of the endless cycle of the Mandalorian into your heart and you are wrapped in all your fear and worries and living back up in the head area. It’s like being in a washing machine, an endless cycle. Not that I have had that experience, but I have a really good imagination. Soon though it becomes easier and easier to not have any attachment to the spin cycle of thoughts and fears and slowly endless stream of dreams (still with spikes of fear) but an endless stream of dreams has erupted in my brain and my heart. From where to live to becoming a nomadic minstrel, to a Doula of Death, sharing Dee’s Tea’s, food, writing children’s novels. To just blogging about my experience when my world as I followed a voice in my head imploded on me and then exploded. I have to say the force has taught me so much, about myself and my relationships with people, and also, I can now see that it’s best to listen to your intuition, because that could have ended months and months of pain, heartache and having my love dangled like a carrot. What happens when you don’t listen to it? Out pops the shadow and says hang on a tick, this is not right, what are you doing to yourself. Respect yourself a little more than that. Don’t you know he’s already left you?

13/9/21

I lashed out and brought my car. It’s funny what show’s up and reveals itself both in the vehicle department and emotionally. Buying this vehicle really showed me where I’m at, in this moment. Sometimes, it’s unexpected and not what you imagined, but kind of sort of there. I have a VW transporter Runner. It’s a 2016 model, I wanted a more recent model and it’s got low KLM’s again a must. There’s a lot in a name and naming my new car was easy. Kimba The Campervan of Courage. This was easy to choose. I’ve always recalled in my mind the animation of Kimba the white lion and this whole event in my life is going to take courage, lots of it. Something that lions possess a lot of. Kimba The Campervan of Courage and I didn’t start off really that well to be honest. Strange what the head does. I had seen the ad for Kimba for some days, only days. But then something inside of me said, this is the sensible option for you Dee, ring and enquire, you don’t have to buy it. I set the wheels in motion and the owner of Kimba responded very quickly and made it so easy for me. Strangely enough I had been experiencing headaches and my lower back that has been aching and painful for a while, was so sore. I felt hungover the day I had to meet the owner and look at the car and I hadn’t driven a larger vehicle for like ages. I really felt sick. I kept asking myself ‘is this a sign? Is this meant to be? I felt very adult and childish at the same time. I didn’t know what to ask and I kept apologising for everything that I was doing. Not knowing what to ask, hitting the brakes too fast, driving to slow, being nervous, it was an interesting reaction. The first big thing I did single. It just felt odd, very adult and exhilarating and scary and exhilarating. I just had to trust. It felt right and even though I didn’t have to buy it, I knew this was it. I brought a car because it felt right. The old OMG the money factor kept pounding in my head, the where are you going to go? what are you going to do? every question and put down “Regina” (my mind) could think of was thrown at me. I sobbed, I cried and felt so alien and alone. I didn’t belong anywhere and I had nothing. Hello what the hell. I just had to objectify that voice and look “Regina” straight in the eyes and say, what are you talking about, you know nothing. I have me and me is going to do this. Just me. I do fancy a dog accompanying me on my travels, but later. Small steps. Kimba and I got off on shaky grounds, the day I went to pay the owner. I couldn’t find the branch and drove to Noosa, to Tewantin and back to Noosa looking for my bank. Silly navigation and silly banks closing down branches and making them so obscure. Then when I found a bank, I arrived quite flustered, only to rock up to the small little desk that pulls out of the wall now a days to find that all of the previous owner’s messages had dropped out of my phone like they were deleted and I had no reception. I had to leave the bank and pace frantically up and down the footpath. Call the man selling me the car and get his details again and then line up in a much larger line than before. “Regina” kept hammering away, you are not meant to get this car, what do you want it for anyway? As she banged on it made me more and more determined to just trust that I was overcoming these obstacles for a reason. What that is I’m not sure. A bank cheque was issued (apparently banks cannot deposit from a different bank to another) so I had to get a bank cheque and deposited it into the soon previous owner’s account. Trusting I know, but when I told the soon not to be owner, that I had done it, he said ‘Well how about I pick it up that day, in the afternoon’. I sent a message to my friend, who I thought had abandoned me as I hadn’t heard much from her, and found out that her messages had not been received and had gone out into the ethers of message land. Of course, she could drop me off. Awesome. The person who sold me the car was such an awesome person, he did the transfer of the number plates and then said he would keep his insurance on the car until I was able to insure it. Then I drove her out of Peregian Beach and into the sunset and cried and cried and cried and cried rivers. Kimba The Campervan of Courage, represents so much more to me than just a car. She was adventure, freedom, and she is about letting go. It’s a smaller step towards goodbye to MR X and my home, to find my way and trust. Trust that I will be supported in the world and trust that this is all going to be wonderful ways for me to tap into my intuition, to live and to become me. Just me. So, I released my sadness all the way home, I felt sick and sad, I cried all the next day. But all the while every time I looked at Kimba, and caught a glimpse of her in the driveway out of the corner of my eye, I smiled and knew that I will finally see me. I’m now looking forward to decorating my little van, with love and fairy kisses.

This truly was how I journaled. It was like I knew then that I was going to share this experience. The reason for the sharing is unclear, but I have chosen to follow my intuition again, that little knowing that I need to do this, and it is one of those choices I made, that is giving my grief some meaning.

When something suddenly ends and you leave a huge part of your life behind, it’s hard to reconcile the existence of that time. I was trying not to remember because it hurt, but I didn’t want to lose my memories either, it was my life. Without those memories my life would not have any meaning. Loosing that part of me became a big fear of mine, because there was no sharing any more the memories that made me who I am, and connected me with my surroundings. All those shared happenings would never be discussed anymore. It was really a painful thought, that I was going to forget my chooks and duck’s names, not to mention my turtle pets. It’s like they never would have existed. My experiences have moulded me into who I am right now in this present moment and I don’t want to lose that, as if it never existed. It’s like my whole life flashed through the little memory tree of my brain and then vanished. Almost like it was protecting me from further pain. That’s an amazing thing to think of. For a while there I thought I had lost a huge part of my life, that it was all for nothing, a waste. But without fail, little by little when I was ready to remember, my life began to filter through. It came through in conversations, in songs, tastes, sensation and warm sunny days. The memories didn’t leave me at all. They were just waiting for me to smile, when I recalled them.

I remember a healing experience as I drove in Kimba on a wide-open road, where all memory and thought seemed to dissipate into the wide expanse of the country side, that really it was ok to let go because I am my past, I embody all of it. I couldn’t shake that shit, the experiences, people met, conversations, from my soul if I tried. Then I realised that I would never forget. The constant advise, to let go, didn’t actually mean forgetting, I seemed to think that was the case at the time. Letting go was more about looking differently at the history of me. To accept that I was now looking from eyes forever changed by those memories, and all of my experiences. I was now more of a person, and had to move on to be so. A constant changing dynamic complicated person. I now saw that my old life was a beautiful life enriching and shaping my soul, and now it was moving me on to something different. I was letting it go by seeing my past as forming my curves, thoughts, emotions, feelings, but there was something more now. It will always be with me, but now it will be the part of me that guides me through new decisions. These beautiful and sad memories are held deep within me. I have moved on and I have let go, just by accepting the new view of me.

I was not going to abandon myself again. Kimba will make sure I didn’t. As I planned for a comfortable space from within, I began to plan an escape for my pain body, a refuge for me and my dreams. Endings are always bitter sweet. On one hand I sat on the precipice of fear, shaking not wanting to budge or move, into the unknown and then on the other hand, I was excited for the very same uncertainty. A journey of opposites and the expression of which told a story, unfolding and revealing what really drives me. A little bit of self-enquiry here and there, opened my eyes to what made my soul sing. I had abandoned the part that looked for excitement, adventure, and that part that wanted to drive into the unknown blue. To watch as the little white lines passed me by and the white clouds hung, in different skies.

There were so many stop signs and so many go signs that contributed to chaos that was my mind at the time, but when chaos dissipated and I found myself sitting in the calm eye of a heartfelt experience, grappling for a way to avoid all the 'rough going ahead', the 'calm eye' always directed me forward. I recalled times in Kimba during extreme winds, it wasn’t enough just to roll up the windows, and shut out the roar, Kimba would shake and tremble from the ferocity of the winds outside and that became a sign to me, that I should perhaps stop and get that best pie in the world, from a bakery somewhere, and wait till the storm had passed or the wind wasn’t showing so much spite. That was a definite, don't proceed sign. But I came to sense a calmness and found times when a stop sign had a different meaning. The stop signs were actually signs of frustration, saying get going, you really need this, keep going. You can do this; this is a challenge. When I kept pressing ahead against all the signs against the flow forward, I would notice a knowing of it being right. When I was in the process of finding banks and details and it just seemed that stop signs were bringing me to a halt. I really imagined driving and decorating Kimba's interior, and when I did there was an overwhelming feeling of peace and calm. I had to get this car. It was right. I can do this. The signs began to read 'All Clear Ahead.'

So, Kimba helped to make choices that I didn’t feel I could make ever. I inadvertently set the wheels in motion, when I started to look at VW transporters online, a little mention of travelling around Australia by a friend, of dreaming of that type of adventure and then the phone call that led to a purchase. That purchase then led to the most conscious and painful decision I have yet had to make in my life. Kimba firstly took my mind away from the grief and provided a dreaming of the possibility of a life of freedom away from the pain, which was like an oasis up ahead along the road, that needed to be explored. But I found in the end that pain was unavoidable, it was to follow me, it was a passenger on the journey and it took up lodging inside me. I just wanted it to end, I wanted to banish pain and drop it off somewhere, so it couldn’t find me, but then, something happened with my pain, as I began to change the way I looked at it. My pain presented another freedom, the freedom that comes with the acceptance and surrender to, all of me, including my shadow side. I was awakened to the beauty of all of my emotions. Pain for all its brutality, was a part of me. Pain was there as a beacon to create the change and deliver different choices for me. A very powerful part of me, that like a puppet on a string, actually picked me up, when I was clutching at my heart, and piece by piece, it saw me, standing in all my tears, it wiped them from my face, it sat me behind the wheel of my new car and it drove me out of the place that was my life up until that point. The pain was with me all the way and still is. It was this pain, and the need to escape it, that talked to the courage part of me. It worked with the other parts of me, that could look at the fear that kept talking me down. Pain woke me up, called in my courage and changed my outlook to cloudy with some showers, later sunshine to dry up the rain. I was able to drive away and look towards a new beginning for me. Another chapter and I was mildly excited, because slowly on this journey forward in my new little van, Kimber the campervan of courage, I was starting to roar. I felt it. Choices, inadvertent or conscious create a winding path to who knows where, but I know there will be many more and they will always lead me, back to me.

My new mantra thanks to some beautiful cards

‘The Hive of Love – Empowerment Oracle’

by the very powerful and wonderful Melanie Hughes,

‘I have the power to create, I believe whole heartedly in myself.’