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Uncovering Loneliness

posted 15th July 2011    Written by: Katharine    CATEGORY: All Posts, Katharine, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 4, Travel

Australia has been a very healing place for me.  I came into this country with a lot of unanswered questions, unresolved issues, a broken heart that still hadn’t fully healed, an emotional void constantly being filled with alcohol, and a burning desire of wanting something more.  That’s a lot of baggage to carry around from country to country.

In six months I found the courage to start over.  New career.  New city (and country).  New friends.  New relationship.  But there’s still something missing; I still feel this sharp pain deep in my heart and soul.

Buried beneath all of the happiness, excitement, adventure, and newness is deep, painful loneliness.

I’ve been struggling with loneliness for a couple years now, though I think this is the first time that I’m actually admitting it. I don’t know where it stems from.  Maybe partly from losing my parents at such a young age (and not being raised in that tight-knit family dynamic) and partly from the unhealthy relations I had with nearly every man back in America which created this dangerous feeling of inadequacy.

Traveling solo surely doesn’t erase this feeling of loneliness though.

Choosing to create a new life in Australia is certainly a monumental tipping point for me, but it does come at a cost.  I had wonderful, supportive, genuine friends back home.  I had two brothers who would drop everything and come running to me if I needed them.  I had a therapist who saved my life and helped me work through my emotional demons.  And I chose to be selfish and leave it all behind to travel the world solo and find my happiness.

Now I’m on an island, miles and miles away from my closest friends and family, trying to find a way to build a new foundation full of happiness, love, and gratitude.  I’m trying to become a successful ESL teacher, a genuine friend, and a loving girlfriend.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  Life Down Under isn’t always rainbows and butterflies; it’s an emotional roller coaster of fleeting happiness, painful loneliness, drops of stratejoy, and moments of feeling homesick.

Being an ESL teacher in Australia is very challenging, for obvious reasons.  I’m teaching private lessons to International students and Backpackers, but it’s not steady, guaranteed work every day.  Some days I teach eight lessons, other days I won’t teach at all.

Most of the friends I had when I first got here have traveled out of the country, and it’s been tough to organize nights out with the remaining friends that are still in town.

It’s emotionally challenging to be in a relationship with a man who’s constantly surrounded by his friends and family and I’m on the other side of the world from mine.  I miss that kind of social environment and I miss being around people who really know me.  I don’t want to become co-dependent on him, but it’s tough when he’s one of the reasons why I chose to stay.

How do I make the loneliness of starting over in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from everything I know and love, go away?

I don’t know how to work through it.  I don’t know how to just sit with this feeling and be okay in the moment.

Starting over is scary.  Though I never thought I’d ever start my life over in Australia, I certainly don’t regret this decision.  This country has changed my life.  But I think that honeymoon phase of being here is officially over and now I need to start digging deep and working through this loneliness and the other emotional affects of living abroad.

{photo credit: Vermario}

 

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What’s One More Change?

posted 7th July 2011    Written by: Bri    CATEGORY: Bri, Job/Career/Work, Life Lesson, Season 4

Since I started writing here my life has gone through some changes.  Understatement? I went from single girl living alone trying to really drice home the whole self-love thing to, well, a married lady with a VERY active baby boy moving around in my stomach constantly.

There have been some leaps of faith required to hold my shit together; this is a fact.  The residual effect of all this change is this overwhelming feeling that I have the power within me to change whatever I want to get to the life I dream of.

 

 

 

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” – Winston “The Man” Churchill

My life is like a house that you buy thinking it’s pretty fantastic but then you decide to redo the guest room and in that process you cause a hole in a wall that leads to a bathroom remodel, and now your wall colors don’t match so you move down the hallways and you just keep going and before you know it you’ve redone the whole darn house.  Change is addicting, but what if the result is YOUR DREAM HOUSE? Change doesn’t seem so scary when you have so much to gain.

These thoughts have been running rampant in my head lately:

What if I could work from home?  Writing and freelancing to pay the bills.

What if I didn’t have to put Baby A into day care at 2 months old?

What if I had flexibility in my schedule to take time off in the summers to travel with my family?

What if I could take a lunch break and meet up with a new Mama friend for a little play date?

What if I could be REALLY happy every single day when I work?

What if my commute time was the time it took me to walk from the coffee machine to my home computer?

What if I could make MORE that I do now?

What if I could control the projects I took on?

What IF I just made one more change?

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Video Blog: Live Your Best Life

posted 24th June 2011    Written by: Katharine    CATEGORY: All Posts, Creativity, Inspiration, Katharine, Season 4

“Live your best life,” she told me, as I detailed my adventures of traveling around the world searching for happiness.

We met in a cafe in Wenceslas Square in Prague.  She was backpacking through Central Europe with her husband, and I was working on a lesson plan for my class.  We exchanged stories of why we came to Prague and what our next adventure is going to be.

Live your best life.

Simple, yet so, so complicated.  Because what exactly can I do to live my best life?  How can I make each day count?

Nicole wrote her personal manifesto, The Life Less Bullshit, and so did Katie.  I have to be honest, I loved both of them.  So much that it prompted me to write my own personal manifesto.

So, I did.

The wonderful Amanda raised the bar this season with her own video blog, talking about what makes her terrified.  Molly then challenged the rest of us Season 4 bloggers to match it.  I hate being on camera and in the spotlight, but this season for me has been all about breaking out of my comfort zone (like going skydiving in Australia!), so I decided to continue with this trend by video blogging.

I’ve never done this before, so please be kind and don’t judge me.

Live your best life.

(in case you’re wondering, the song is a cover of Pink’s ‘Less Than Perfect.’).

 

 

{photo credit: taken of the Sydney Harbour at sunset}

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You Are Your Own Happiness Engineer

posted 21st June 2011    Written by: Amanda    CATEGORY: All Posts, Amanda, Life Lesson, Season 4, What I've Learned

I started reading Reality is Broken a little while ago. Jane McGonigal caught my attention with her TED Talk a while back, where she talked about how gaming — yes, of the video gaming variety — could change the world. Of course, my being a gamer meant that I was all like, “HELL YEAH, BABY! LET’S DO THIS THANG.”

And then her book came out.

While I thought the book was going to be all about explaining the awesomeness of games to non-gamers, it turned out to be an exercise in paradigm shifting. I’m not very far into the book (yet) but the chapter on Happiness Engineers really caught my attention… especially after recent events.

You guys know that Mike and I don’t own a vehicle. No point in this transit oriented city. Mike went over to Vancouver Island last weekend and brought back his mom’s SUV (since she’s using her other vehicle and Mike’s dad is in Toronto for four weeks). It’s been nice to have wheels.

I digress.

Not the point.

He proposed that we go and get our hospital bag(s) packed for when ZomBaby decides to make his appearance. I noticed I didn’t have everything I needed so we figured we’d go out and pick it up from the local Mega Store of Groceries and Other Things (ahem, Superstore). About three blocks into our journey, I burst into tears.

Of course, Mike was a bit horrified. I’m not usually one to just break down and cry out of the blue. We can blame the pregnancy hormones all we want but the truth is this: I’ve been feeling very isolated lately. Events had occurred recently that had really shifted my perception of the people in my life. Where I wouldn’t expect someone to step up, people have stepped up. Where I have expected support, people haven’t bothered to show up.

It’s an odd thing to be faced with that kind of reality. It’s like I’m in perma-Opposite-Day-mode or something.

Okay, it’s not just odd.

It’s devastating.

So I sat in my mother-in-law’s silver Nissan SUV and I bawled. It wasn’t just a few tears. This was a full-on, big ugly cry. With hiccups. And black liquid eyeliner EVERYWHERE.

As soon as I could speak, Mike asked me, “Baby, what’s wrong? Why are you crying so hard? Did I hurt you?”

Sniffling hard, I said, “No, love. I’m just so angry that while I’m faltering and flailing… people keep leaving or not bothering to show up. I feel alone. I feel desperate. I feel isolated. I feel under-loved… like my soul is malnourished or something…”

Eventually, I pulled my shit together and we managed to get our hospital checklist taken care at the Superstore.

The next day, I contemplated my reaction in the car and really dug deep to understand both my motivations and the motivations of others.

1. In which we love too much.

I’ve always been of the mind that if I pour my heart and soul into another human being that they will reward me with loyalty and respect. I figure that if I love people enough, it will act as its own deterrent for people seeking to hurt me. After all, what kind of person would go out of their way to hurt someone that loves you so damn much?

And, as always, my naiveté overpowers my logical brain meats.

Shortly after my outburst in the SUV, Mike pointed out that the people I know aren’t being malicious. People have their own lives full of their own worries and concerns. I can’t expect to be loved by everyone. It’s simply not possible. Or reasonable.

“But I love a lot of people,” I protested.

“Yes, but you are the exception, not the rule. I know that I don’t tell my friends I love them. I may care for them but it wouldn’t occur to me to say it out loud. I figure they just know.”

I found myself vexed. Perhaps Mike was onto something.

Which led me to…

2. We engineer our own happiness.

“Positive psychology is the relatively new field of science that studies “human flourishing”, or how we achieve different kinds of happiness. For just over a decade now, positive-psychology researchers have been accumulating a formidable body of knowledge about how our brains and bodies work to help us achieve well-being and life satisfaction.” – Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken)

It’s a luxury to be thinking about happiness and joy and “human flourishing”. I know it is. I know that I’m blessed enough to have grown up in (moderate) privilege, without having to worry about my personal well-being and survival beyond more than, “What shall we make for dinner tonight?”

When I think about happiness in the context of my life, I think of myself as a happy person (especially these days). I smile a lot. I laugh all the time, without thinking. Many things (and people) bring me a distinct feeling of joy and fulfillment.

And that, as I’ve learned, is wherein the problem lies: things and people bring me joy.

The conclusion I came to is that if I relied on the rest of the world to bring me joy and happiness and fulfillment, I would be left with a string of disappointments in the form of completely busted relationships that were buried under high expectation and lack of mutual respect.

Happiness must come from within, first and foremost.

It was a hard lesson to learn, especially after the years I’ve spent being a firm believer in cultivating relationships and love in order to feel loved (and happy) in return. By allowing my thirst for love and approval to drive my happiness, I became tied to the moods of friends and family. Slippery-ass-slope especially when…

3. People are fickle.

Yes, yes they are. People will come. They will go. They will show up when they’re least expected. They’ll be conspicuously absent when they’re needed. They’ll love you when you feel loved up. They’ll ignore you when you’re desperate for a scrap of human attention and validation.

Or they’ll surprise you and do something completely unexpected and wonderful in the process.

People are fickle (and, by our own nature, selfish), therefore we must become our own Happiness Engineers. We can’t be looking to the horizon and saying, “If only this person would love me a little more — a little better — I could be happier.” Or wishing for Prince Charming to swoop in. Or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. Whatever floats your boat, really.

This is one the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn in my life. I know that it will take many, many more years of reprogramming my own behaviour until I get to the point where my friendships and relationships can’t crush me.

I must become Happiness Sufficient of my own volition.

Talk about a tall order. Got any advice for me? Better yet, got a similar story to share?

Image found via Image Spark.

 

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Ready to Love Again

posted 17th June 2011    Written by: Katharine    CATEGORY: All Posts, Katharine, Love/Relationships, Season 4, Travel/Adventure, What I've Learned

“Life never gives you the same chance twice and destinations never stay the same.  Get going now because you are missing out on the world out there, not the world where you are.”

The decision of staying in Australia or moving to Taiwan wasn’t easy.  I couldn’t just flip a coin and let that be it.  I had to really think about what exactly it was that I wanted right now and in the future.

I’m incredibly happy in Australia and I’m not sure I’m ready to give that up just yet.

When it comes down to it, it’s all about regret.  Life is about living with as little regret as possible. Will I regret not moving to Taiwan or will I regret not staying in Australia?  Will I regret not pursuing my career or will I regret not pursuing a relationship?

I knew which decision would reap the least regret, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself.  Maybe because I never thought I would actually be one of ‘those’ people.

I’m staying in Australia and taking a chance on love.

There’s a lot at stake here.  For me and for him.  We’re both young – 27 and 26 respectively – from two different countries, backgrounds, and lifestyles.  Yet, we have similar hopes, dreams, and passions for life.  Me choosing to stay for this relationship certainly puts some added pressure on him.  My tourist visa expires on August 25th, at which point I’ll have to leave the country (unless I leave sooner to renew my tourist visa) and apply for a working visa so I can return to Australia to live and work for one year and continue to make things work between us.

And then there are the emotional risks.  I’m falling hard and fast for this man.  Maybe it’s his Australian accent (swoon) or maybe it’s because I haven’t been in a relationship in a while and everything is still in that ‘honeymoon’ phase, but it’s starting to get more challenging to keep my heart protected.

But as scary as it is knowing that I’m willing to make big sacrifices for a man without a guarantee of this relationship working out, I realized that I’m finally ready to be in a mature, committed relationship.  Eventually you reach a point in your life when you’re no longer afraid to get hurt. That’s exactly where I am right now.  I’m terrified of falling in love again, but I want to give this relationship – and this man – everything I have because I believe it’s the only way to live passionately and with intention.

I’m finally ready to love again.

I know it sounds crazy – to sacrifice a job opportunity for a relationship that might not work out – but what if it does work?  What if this is it? I want to take this chance.  I finally found a genuine man who doesn’t play games and knows what he wants and I can’t let myself walk away from him yet.  I’ve already met his parents, brothers, and closest friends (I told you things move faster when you live abroad).  This is the healthiest relationship I’ve ever been in and after all I’ve been through, I deserve this.

{photo credit: weheartit}

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