That thing called time. It just keeps passing us by.

 "Dear optimist, pessimist and realist,

 while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of water, I drank it.

Sincerely, the opportunist".

Jetlag.

A clairvoyant once proclaimed that I would “never suffer from jetlag”. Well, I spent 6 nights staring at a ceiling of darkness at 3am. I do get jetlag. I’ll have my money back thanks. In a room of darkness, all you’ve got is your thoughts and then you end up texting your girlfriends saying, “lets go out tomorrow night! I can’t sleep anyway!”.

I am back in New York, just in time for the snow to start falling. How beautiful is that snow.

I boarded the plane at JFK, November 8th.  Next stop LAX.

While I’ve never been afraid of flying, these long journeys grind my gears. It’s time to invent an instant transportation shuttle, anyone?

After 37 hours, I arrived in Sydney and greeted my family and friends as if I’d seen them yesterday. It really was as if no time had passed, my Grandma remarked that my jeans looked like they were missing patches (it’s just the style of jean, I swear) and driving alongside my best friend I sat in the passenger seat often day dreaming out the window just as I used too. 

Once home it was time for a shower (37 hours, need I say more?) and there was my body wash, just where I’d left it. How was my body wash still sitting in the same place it had been when I was now so far from that? I thought being back would feel different. Like looking at a green rock that used to be grey. Or a red rose that used to be white. But it doesn’t, its still a grey rock with a white rose sitting on top. My room looks like I never left, overflowing with books, shoes, bags, jackets and shirts. My Mum still buys my favourite cereal with my favourite yogurt and my friends still love and tease each other as they always have.

Welcome back Rachel.

So what’s changed? Well, the thing about returning to your old room, your old clothes live there and in your old clothes lives your old waist size, which I thought hadn’t been too badly affected by my American adventure. I thought wrong. My favourite pair of black pants… didn't…. fit.

What.       the.      heck.

I looked in the mirror as if it would laugh back at me and say “just kidding! Here are your actual pants that still fit!”, nope, all that looked back at me was an open zipper. While I was convinced the ‘hot’ days would induce weight loss with a diet of water and fruit… but the rain wouldn’t let up!

Besides the waistline… the change I have noticed the most is us. One best friend just got married and the other just welcomed her second beautiful little boy into the world. Life is different here now. Everyone is growing up.

“adulthood is like the vet, we’re all the dogs that were excited for the car ride until we realize where we’re going”. 

A group that was once ‘always available’ for days at the beach, shopping at the mall or sitting out the back of R’s parents house… doesn’t exist anymore.  R now has her own house and is married, G and E live in London, and the rest of the girls have those adult “things” called full-time jobs, some living with boyfriends and doing “adult stuff” like being tired after work, cooking, cleaning and resting (huh! I think we just grew up?). I remember laying down at night, 14 years old, squeezing my eyes tight and imagining what it would be like when I could drive a car, what it would be like when I had graduated university, what it would be like when my friends start getting married and having babies… on purpose. Well, we have arrived.  And how lucky I am to get to be next to them.

We are now out of our teens and into our twenties. Although what I now realise is the thread of our teens still holds us together. And you need that. While time moves forward and we change our hair colour and our boyfriends, we can still sit around and know all the rocks we’ve jumped over and all the rivers we’ve swam across between then and now. We get it. We get each other. 

I travelled home to Tasmania and sat around a table with 3 of my childhood friends I’ve know for 20 years. We grew up together, we got the school bus together, we climbed trees together and we sung the Spice Girls and Hanson together. It had been 4 years since we’d sat at a table together but by god you couldn’t stop us talking and laughing like we were the SB girls in grade 10 again. That thread, while it may become stretched by distance, always remains. That thread keeps you grounded, no matter how far you go.

The weeks flew by and before I knew it I was back at the airport boarding the plane. JFK here I come. Flying over Manhattan, seeing the lights, seeing the ground come closer, I was filled with a stomach full of butterflies. While I had been here in the U.S for 6 months, this was something different. Something new. Here was the excitement of the unknown. But deep in, also lived a giant lump in my throat- “it’s all you now”. New home. New job. New plan. New York, round 2. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm a planner, with a colour coded diary and a schedule 12 months in advance. I don't do "go with the flow" very well and I don't do "let's see what happens". I do A + B= C on January 12 at 2:47am. In the past few weeks I've had to learn to let go of my inability to go with the flow as it was nearly driving me to the edge of the subway platform (kidding obviously!). But seriously, I have never been unemployed while searching for a job. In fact I haven't been unemployed in 10 years. I've worked since I was 14. I've always had a plan and I knew the direction I was headed. I've always had a job before I went to the next. But I am here, back in New York. 

Nearly two weeks have passed and there’s no looking back. The adventure continues. And I've come to realise how things just fall into place. It doesn't matter how much you plan, things will work just the way they do. The past 7 days have honestly been the most interesting of my entire time here. I have met so many new people and the snow has hardly stopped. Last weekend I had a conversation with someone, who I had met only a few times prior. He oozed confidence and reeked of arrogance all at once. My friend could even see it through the crowd. This guy. But I was so intrigued. Someone I wouldn't normally care to double look at, had me intrigued. Was there more? It intrigued me because it was something I was trying to sort out myself. Who we project is not always WHO we are. The pictures we take, the comments we write, the looks we give, the way we dress-  all projecting an image. But is it the one we intend? Coming to New York and meeting new people makes you question who you're projecting. Especially when you're interviewing. Public Rachel and private Rachel. The difference lies in those who care to dig deeper. In New York, is there time?

Everyone is busy, coming or going somewhere. I took the time to have a conversation with him. I think there is more than what is on the surface. What I do know, arrogant or not, one sentence he said has stuck in my head, "I know my worth". A lot of people would think this to be an arrogant statement but it made me think, how many of us know our worth, how many actually respect their worth? How many give second chances to people they know they shouldn't, say yes when they would rather say no and side step off their path for the sake of someone else's? As I enter into 12 months in New York, searching for a job, meeting new friends, learning to find a balance- what a great statement to remember. If you forget it, that's when you end up in 10 years far far from where you ever imagined. Maybe that is arrogance, or maybe that's just knowing whats what. We will see. Everyone will judge,  everyone will watch but who takes the time to dig a little deeper?

      "One belongs to New York instantly" - Tom Wolfe

xxxx