Can we keep it like this?

Oh how I’ve miss this. My writing, my little corner of cyberspace that helps me to quieten the noise.

I have been writing, though mostly emails and assignments. I forgot how much time it takes to be a student. But I am loving the learning, the lectures, tutorials, practicals even the assignments, but after many many hours at the screen, I don’t have the energy to bash out a blog post.

I don’t want to just ‘bash’ out some content to keep the blog ticking over, this space will never be filled with what is not authentic. It will always be my voice, my content, what is circling my head. I have tried over the years to add in bits and pieces that I thought I should write, as a good blogger, a range of pieces to spark the interest of different audiences. But really I write this for me and if you enjoy it too, then that just makes me love you even more. Apart from the odd “I could live here” which will nearly always be a cabin or modern home in the middle of a forest because that is exactly where I want to live.

I actually have written a fair bit lately, just in my head when I have been out hiking. Now that the restrictions are starting to ease, the first thing (when my exams are over) I want to do is go out on an overnight hike. Just pack up my backpack and go. Doesn’t even have to be that far. Maybe the Blue Mountains. Like I haven’t spent enough time alone. I will just stay alone, not in my house, somewhere else.

I like being alone. It has never ever bothered me. Especially when I felt out of control or anxious or sad, I like connection but I don’t want to know how out of control I am. Confused? Try being inside my head.

I only like my people. As they say on Runway “You are either in or you are out” most people I meet can probably just assume they are on the out. You’ll know if you are in. If you are reading this then you are absolutely ‘in’.

On September 12 last year, I took a mental health day work (and you know I was honest with work about it all and they were great about it) and I went for a long hike alone, with nothing but me, myself and my hateful thoughts about myself, in the rain, after 15km and 10 minutes beating a very expensive hiking pole against a rock while yelling at myself “why do I fucking suck at life so badly” until the rock won, I felt better. A lot better. Back to normal better.

I don’t want to go back to ‘normal’, if that means shopping and spending and 50 hour weeks, and sitting in traffic and flying to another city for a ‘meeting’, queues and lines, checking out, checking in, the rat race, glorifying busy…..

Personally I have LOVED the slower pace, the genuine connection, the efficiency, the focus and the benefits to my own mental health. Can we keep it like this?