She had been thinking a lot these past weeks about her life … past and present … the highs and lows and the journey that bought her to her now. The mortality and seemingly pointlessness of it all. What was life really but a journey to an inevitable end? What was her purpose …? On her deathbed, what would she think of herself and that journey?
She was melancholy today remembering all the places she’d been, where she’d lived and the people that had been important to her along the way. Some of those people still were, embedded in her life and her memories. She had never dreamed her life would lead her here .. a small acreage property in a small town in rural Queensland …. A peaceful existence really in these autumn years of her life.
She did wonder what her younger self would think of her. What would she say to Younger She and what advice would she give besides the obvious – buy property and travel! That seemed so obvious now but she was in a hurry to live her life back then, being who others thought she should be.
She couldn’t really remember much now about her dreams and aspirations when she was younger. She never really had much ambition in a career sense. She’d have given fanciful answers such as rocket scientist if asked, anything other than the traditional teacher or nurse responses that many of her then friends strived for. She was a horse mad teenager and for a short while she wanted to be a racehorse trainer but the realisation of the extreme hard work required with the very small chance of success put paid to that. She’d tried dancing and acting but never really had more than a mediocre talent for both and she certainly did not have the voice of an angel so a life of fame was not to be.
There had been no ambitions of university or degrees and looking back now she understood that her nuero-divergent brain would never have succeeded in a formal student setting. She’d never been academic in any way … pragmatic was a better description although she’d managed to survive school with good grades without trying too hard. She needed to learn by doing, not by being told, by seeing the world and the people in it.
She had always wanted to travel, obsessed with history and other cultures, so at the age of 20, she’d set off on her first adventure to England … eight months immersing herself into mid England culture and she had not wanted to leave. She had felt so at home there, her ancestral memory had kicked in and welcomed her back to her roots. That eight months was full of adventure – exploring castles and historic manors, wandering Roman ruins imagining all the past lives that had lived and flourished there, meeting long lost relatives and making new friends. And the parties! The clubs and the late nights dancing the night away and the inevitable walk of shame in the early morning light. It was, she guessed, a substitution for those mad university days she’d often heard about but never experienced.
Returning to New Zealand after that heady eight month whirlwind and to that quiet small town life had been hard. She had never felt like that was home after England and it was inevitable that she would leave again and return to her ancestral home. She’d instead fallen into the trap of getting married, getting a job, buying a house, but had never felt fulfilled and the call of England was always present and loud in her ears.
She figured her younger self would look upon her life now as idyllic – dogs, horses and a wee country plot of her own. She’d stumbled into her career of Safety and HR and it had been a successful one which had certainly provided her with a level of financial comfort. Younger She might even describe her as rich, but comfortable was perhaps the best description. It hadn’t always been an easy ride. There had been heartaches, heartbreaks and sadness, of course as many people experience, but also the loss of love, good friends, the guilt of a child gone, terrible jobs that had her in the pits of despair, and so, for a bit, the loss of herself.
So, what would she say now to that younger self? What pearls of wisdom would she share? That did depend on what part of life she was in.
In her twenties she would tell herself to travel and keep travelling. Don’t sell the house, rent it out … be independent and demand to be heard. Shelve the guilt, the child would be in your life again, happy and thriving. Do not try to be someone you are not and have the courage and confidence to be yourself. Don’t be tied down to a mediocre life in a mediocre town. Don’t be gagged. Above all, don’t think you’re fat!
Her thirties had been the becoming of herself .. partly due to Mr She who she had met and fell in love with hard and fast, and the ability he gave for her to be who she was. He loved her vibrancy, her colour and kookiness. The traits others looked down upon and had tried to smother he’d been enthralled by and so she’d blossomed, felt loved and cherished and, for once she’d felt beautiful.
The roaring forties had been exactly that. She’d roared through that decade trying everything life threw at her. Music, a new found confidence in her looks and her talents, modelling, burlesque, horses again were a big part of her life and her long lost child … a blossoming friendship and maternal love. And then the decision to move to Brisbane. Another adventure and one she’d do again a thousand times over.
And here she was. In the place perhaps she was meant to be with the people in her life seeing in her what she didn’t see herself and loving her for it. The people who had needed her and who she had embraced as family. Those steps through life had led her to Mr She, had led her here, to her tight community of supportive friends, new and old.
She had amazing memories of this life – maybe she’d just tell Younger She to enjoy the ride and trust the journey. It really had led somewhere fabulous.
The She Diaries 
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