I was craving to write something and I would have wrote this in my journal but... I've kinda misplaced that... so yah...

There are a few things that I learned about myself after coming home from travelling.
Which I guess relates directly to what I learnt while I was travelling.

First of all,
Gabrielle Aplin. Her songs can help me breathe and relax better than anything else I've ever come across. Well, her, John Mayor, and that one piano song by Yiruma called "The River Flows in You".

Second of all,
I love my alone time. I've always known that I've been a bit of an introvert at heart, but I've realised now that I'm an introvert down to my very core. I've learnt to be an extrovert when it comes to meeting new people and fitting in to society's funny little rules. But when it comes down to it, I crave being able to escape in to my mind and have my own quiet little story conversations. I could not open my mouth and speak for an entire day, and you know what? I would be completely content on that day.
The first day after coming home I was so happy that I could just sit in my room and be quiet for the entire day. No one questioning "Why on earth are you taking so long in the washroom?!" "are you okay?! You've been so quiet today!"
I could just sit and do nothing, and that in itself was glorious.

Third of all,
Singing calms me down. Just singing to myself instantly cheers me up and allows me to be able to sleep comfortably and quietly. No matter where I go in life, when I eventually end up with a partner he must be able to handle me singing to myself when I get scared. When I have a really bad break down I tend to whisper "You are my Sunshine" to myself until I can get myself back to full volume and my voice is solid and not shaky from my anxiety tremors.

Fourth of all,
I love my family. Oh I can't even begin to explain how much I love my family.
Seeing my parents for the first time at the airport and having my mom just break down and hold me in her arms while she covered my hair in tears hahaha. Oh how I love her. And my dad, he looked so close to breaking down as well, I'm pretty sure he was holding in those tears pretty hard. I love my parents. I love them both so very much that no words in the world could explain it. You could almost compare it to a parent loving their children, except I love my parents like that. So very unconditionally and whole-heartedly.
My brother. My brothers. Jordan, Kris, I was so excited to see both of you.
Jordan, Mom let your secret go when she told me that you had confided in her that you missed me and that it was weird not having me around. Oh how I love you. I love you and your stresses, your anxieties, your jokes, your smile, your goofy and silly ways. I love them all. And I'm so happy you're beginning to trust the world again. I love you so, so much.
Kris, I love you so much too. I can't even begin to explain how happy I am that you and Brooke are so happy together. I hope you two always stay that way. You deserve every inch of happiness. I look up to you so much. Your quiet, thoughtful ways. You were always the one with the level-head, but you can still cut a good joke out at the same time. I miss you. But I realise that's a lot of what growing up involves. It involves a lot of missing people, and I think I'm finally okay with that. You have Brooke to keep you company, and oh how I have grown to adore her. She may annoy me like hell sometimes, but she's really not all that bad. She keeps the things and people that matter the most close to her, which really is the best way to live. I've grown to love you Brooke, and I'm so happy that you and my brother married. I can't wait to one day be an aunt to one of you guys' kids!

Fifth,
I've learnt that it's okay to have ghosts. It's okay to have a past, or no past. It's okay to not be okay in a situation, and it's okay to be completely comfortable in one. It's okay to be creepy, or overly-friendly, or not friendly at all. Maybe even a little stand-offish is okay too. It's okay to make a fool of yourself, and to have a good laugh at yourself. It's okay to be unhappy with a situation. It's just a situation, it's not a life-time, it won't last.

It's okay.

It's okay to fail. It's okay to brush yourself off, stand up, and slip on a banana peel after your first step and fall flat back on to the ground again. That's okay.

It's okay to be vulnerable, to let people take care of you. To accept peoples kindnesses even when you may not necessarily need them. But you do it anyways because you know that it makes them feel good. Because you know that it would make you feel good.

I learnt that it's okay to not get along with everyone. That I don't have to be a whiz at coming up with conversations with everyone, and that people can think that I'm weird and awkward and not want to talk to me. That's okay. hahaha
I am weird! I am awkward! I can be a bit creepy at times!
Who cares!!!

It's okay.
and it's okay to be okay.

Thank you Peru, for helping me realize what I already had, and knew, deep down inside me.

"Can you be with a women you'll never be able to please?"

The "you're too hard on yourself" look.

The "I'm too lazy" voices in my head.

The places I've felt at my happiest

My nana's & papa's house
It's like my own little fairy tale get-a-way from life.
So cute and quaint.
I always feel like I'm in another world when I'm there. Looking out at my nana's garden, and beyond that the ocean from the sun room. Playing my nana's piano while I smell the heavenly aroma of freshly made cookies coming from the kitchen.
It's my own little fairy tale world.
I've contemplated many times on how it would be the perfect setting for a movie, or a novel.




Coldplay concert 2012
It was one of the most amazing and glorious concerts ever.
I felt so at ease, and calm, and tranquil.
I can still see the confetti raining down on me and my friends as we literally glowed in the dark when hearing charlie brown played, because we had painted our entire bodies with glow paint. (which was a bitch and a half to get off hahaha)
I can remember the smiles on my bestfriends faces, and I remember just thinking "wow, if I could live in any moment forever it would be now".
I was so, at peace.

Nicaragua 2013
I spent a lot of the trip wishing I could just go home, because I was home sick and I was actually sick.
But there was this one day that made the rest of my trip so ironic, because now I never wanted it to end but I knew it eventually would.
That day we had all worked our asses off shoveling out two giant dump trucks full of sand and gravel, and then we mixed some cement to end the work day. I remember having a shower at the end of that day and just thinking "I have never been happier in my entire life than right now".
I wasn't superficial happy or just on the surface happy; I was the sort of happy that originates in the core of yourself and it spreads to every last nerve, and consumes you in entirety. I was purely happy right down to my core, and I've never felt that happy ever before in my entire life, thus far. It was like I was an epiphony; my soul, my body, my mind.
There really is no words to describe the feeling.
In retrospect it doesn't even make sense haha.
I was so sore from that day, and completely exhausted and mentally drained, all the while standing in a death defying cold shower, scrubbing off my entire body which was covered in 10 layers of dirt, sweat, and sunscreen mixed together. In a tiny little bathroom that had holes in the walls and bugs all over the place, and a toilet that didn't even work properly so we had to throw our toilet paper in a garbage can.
Any sane person would've been crying in that shower begging to go home. Back to the comforts of modern day first world civilization. Where the most manual labor they have to do is pick-up a tv remote.

Yet for me, in that moment, that right there is when I was at my happiest I've ever been.
And oh, how I do miss it.

I've realised I have a new found love for spoken word poetry

Keaton Henson

Sarah Kaye

Phil Kaye