The Adventure Continues...

...but not how I thought it would. Moxie, the 46' trimaran is still at it's mooring in Ko Olina marina, Jules and Louis have gone to Texas, Ian (our 4th team member and dive instructor) has accepted an invitation to join Jerry back on his boat and I've headed back home. Bummer :(

I decided not to accept Louis' invitation to join him and his family in Texas for Christmas. I decided not to accept Jerry's invitation to come back on board to keep the other female company (sharing the V birth, the only room left besides Jerry's bed, with another woman is not my idea of fun).

I decided to come home.

I am at Anita's and Paul's in Sydney, about to head to Canberra to face the things I need to face, incompletions and unfinished business, things that tie me down and don't add much to my life, like debt.

It is no accident, what has happened to me. I realise now that I was resisting things, running away from something. Coming back reflects a readiness and willingness on my part to stop running. Not sure what that looks like or how I'm going to do it. I'm terrified of monotony and boredom and sameness. I love being different and I've vehemently resisted anyone or anything taking away my freedom. But there seem to be limitations on this now. Now it just feels like resisting responsibility and avoiding intimacy. I'm feeling my age. I'm tired of flitting from one thing to the next but the alternative seems so onerous that I can't stand the thought of it. Yet, nothing in the database of my mind knows how to deal with this anymore, or grow beyond it. I feel like I've tried everything to settle down and be responsible and do the right thing, find a man, get married, save and invest for my retirement, work in the public service...

Now that I have no home, no job, no boyfriend and no cat, I'm looking into the future and I've never been so unsure of what's next. One of the biggest things I've learned in the last few weeks is that my criteria for decision making is a shaky foundation of wants and needs and don't wants and feelings and emotions. Nothing solid to guide my choices. Perhaps it's a spiritual quest I'm on and I'm looking for guidance from something substantial. It isn't my feelings because they change every week. It isn't my wants because I want everything, sometimes all at once. I've never felt so existentially confused. Yet at the same time I am excited. The future is a blank canvas and I can create whatever I want.

I loved my time in Hawaii. I love the Americans and the permission they give you to be yourself. So much more than we Aussies do. I met some wonderful people living lives of diversity and adventure. I met some wonderful men and my time with them was beautiful. I felt alive and free and naturally confident on my travels, despite the trials and tribulations.

I discovered the adventure of the sea, though I didn't get to experience much of it. It's a whole new universe that totally excites me. It's the invitation to learn to dive and discover (and photograph) the underwater universe; the opportunity to commune with native communities to be part of something ancient for just a little while; it's living in close quarters with other human beings where you can't run away and where you have to face yourself and who you are; it's bobbing up and down in an enormous ocean realising how small and insignificant you and your life are and letting this perspective inform your life, rather than the one of relentless pursuit and unconscious driven-ness that most of us experience.

Something great has got to be born from all this experience. It can't be for nothing. Where's the clarity, where's the point? The next few weeks may be as interesting as the last few. We shall see. Stay tuned.