Let’s wrap it up folks.

Location: The lovely Newcastle, Australia aka HOME

So here we are.  Home.  The journey is over, well and truly over at this point, 4 months over in fact which is actually half the time I was away.   That dream that I once looked at from afar and wondered if it would ever be possible has now been achieved and is threatening to become all but a distant memory.  Dreams are funny like that…  So with that in mind I thought it prudent that I wrap things up here.  I like things in neat little boxes where they can feel taken care of and up until this point this poor blog has been left flapping out there like a sheet  in the wind for quite sometime as not only has it been 4 months since my return, it’s been about 7 months since I actually last wrote.  So let’s put an end to this little afair shall we?

On my return a lot of people expressed disappointment that I didn’t write again after my last entry, Recapturing the Vibe (which was exceptionally flattering…it appears I had quite the little family and friends following which has been rather fortuitous but more on that later).  So yes, I did fail to complete another entry for the remaining 3 months of my trip however I guess you need to understand the purpose of the blog in the first place and the point at which I was when I wrote that entry.  The point of the blog was for me to document the achievement of a major goal for me, my dream that I’d been carrying around in my back pocket on a scrunched up piece of paper for 4 years.  It was a great way to keep in touch with you all too, I’ll grant you that, however it was never meant to be a step by step account of what I did, saw, ate, smelt, touched or experienced on a daily basis.    I wanted some sort of vision, for me, on what it felt like while I was achieving the dream and really, Recapturing the Vibe was probably the pinnacle of all that.  As I wrote that I was right on the precipice of real life again.  The dream had been achieved and I now felt at home in Asia.  Things were familiar, I had good friends and a life there. At that point there was nothing more to document about the achievement of the dream.  I had it in my hot little hand.

Coming home was hard.  Right when I’d finally got the pillows all comfy and felt all settled in with my wonderful friends who really double as family when you are abroad, reality in the form of cash flow hit and I had to pull up sticks and come home.  This was particularly hard as I had really felt, deep down in my stomach where such things are felt, that the Cambodia trip would be the beginning of big things for me, big changes in my life.  I felt it was a big step towards something new and exciting in my future.  Instead I came back to my old hometown, to my old job that I hadn’t done for quite some time, to my old old home with parents as mine was still rented and most of all home to no new direction.  This from the girl who had written people when she was away saying “Oh I’ll be surprised if I ever come back…this is fabulous…I love my life…I’m moving on to different things from here”. I went on like this from here to the bank and back for the first half of my trip.   Sometimes the new direction comes dressed differently than we expect it though, like many things in life…

They say it takes half the time you were away to adjust to being back home and if that’s true, then I’m right on track.  I’ve finally been able to clear the mist from my eyes and the pain from heart to see where the big changes are from this extraodinary experience and of course, they are with me.  I have a new direction, new dreams, it just took me a little while to notice them.  Writing is a big one (thanks for all those positive comments from all of you about this blog) and in the longer term a beautiful little bookshop / creative space for people to pass their time.  It’s nice to have a dream again.  Keeps the soul alive I think.  Thanks for joining me here…

Rachael

From some point in 2009 you can find me at Random Musings from Underneath the Radar. Hope to see you there…if I ever get it started…