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

Run my dear.

Run my dear,

From anything that may not strengthen your precious budding wings.

Just when you think you know someone.... they go and change on you. Or do you change on them? Or did you ever really know them to begin with? Or is it even possible that you've both changed but in different directions? I've learned people change. They change forward, back and sideways. Including you. If you've ever attempted to sit on the front step and grab hold of time by the tail and yank it back in... you'll know it just isn't possible. Time will keep moving and the longer you stomp your foot at it, scrunching your eyebrows and frowning, the sooner you'll be looking in the mirror seeing those lines and wrinkles appearing (and they won't be smile lines). 

Moving away from 'home', whether its a new city, new town or new country, is a sure way to discover who that person is staring back at you in the mirror every morning. As I move into my 7th month in America, I find myself feeling like it was only yesterday that I arrived and I am certainly getting to know the girl in the mirror (although she keeps insisting on changing her hair colour). In 10 sleeps I will be packing my bags, clearing out my room and boarding a plane to Sydney Australia. I will have 4 weeks to spend with friends, family and the sun. Will they be the same? What if it's all different now? Or will it be me who is different? One thing I've learned for sure... is that life goes on (with or without you). 

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

I phoned my Dad last week and told him I would try and come 'home' for a few days while I am back in Sydney. And by home I meant Sisters Beach, Tasmania, the place I lived from ages 3-10 and 15-18. When the word came out of my mouth I realised I'd also used the word twice in the same day, in reference to Sydney and New York (am I cheating on my home?!!). I was honestly a little jolted, is it possible I'm confused with where my home is? Or is there a possibility I just acquired 3 places to call home?  Home for me is a place where I have my friends (not just acquaintance but friends who blur the lines with family), a favourite coffee shop and a place where my family lives. So yes, it looks like I now have 3 homes, 3 beautiful places to call home.

“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

With extra time in the days it can be easy for your thoughts to wander into places you'd rather it not. Into places full of the unknown and the uncontrollable. Anxieties about the future and often the past. Throughout the months here I have certainly had days like this and just when you get to boiling point,  the strangest thing happens, you get jolted back to life... and to the life that is so shockingly wonderful and it's even more beautiful when you realise that it is your life, it's your life that is so wonderful. 

“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

A couple of weeks ago I went to my first 'Day & Night Brunch' in New York city. I remember typing away on my computer months and months ago in Sydney and looking at photos of this brunch and thinking "oh one day I hope I can go to that, it looks so fun!!". And here I was on a Saturday afternoon, dancing next to my friends at the ' Day & Night Brunch'.  

A place where the lights of the venue are switched off and sparklers are lit while a $10, 000 bottle of champagne is extravagantly delivered to the table. A place where you eat eggs benedict while the DJ is blasting beats all around you. A place where you're encouraged to dance and sing at 4pm in the afternoon. A place where some have their stilettos and tight dresses, others in pants and shirts and some in overalls and sunglasses. 

“It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”

Have you ever been to a car show where you sit and anxiously watch 4 V8 trucks drive at top speed straight at each other, with perfect timing and perfect speed they swiftly and safely glide past each other in a perfect X formation? This is how I believe life to be at the moment. You have to figure out the timing and speed needed to glide past all those moving around you and if you stand still too long you're going to get hit and towed away. As I danced to the music at the 'Day & Night Brunch' a friend turned to me and said "is this even our real life? or is our real life waiting back in Australia?". It is our real life. This is real life. Whatever it might look like and however it may have changed, it's still ours. And amongst the chaos we find our kind and stick together, forming new friends, family and a home. 

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Because the chances are...

"If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's"

So put on some devil ears and a nuns constume and create the most wonderful version of yourself possible. Even if it isn't what others thought you were. Even if it isn't what others want from you. Even if you get a text message telling you that you've 'changed' and you're 'not the same' anymore, because  maybe those people are still sitting on the front step trying to grab hold of time by the tail... but time is busy passing them by. Whether you're dancing in a club or squatting in a patch of dirt on a farm picking pumpkins, you are exactly where you need to be and be whatever version of yourself you need to be until you find one that works better. 

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

xxx 

I like this.

New Season...

New Blog design...

New Rachel??... (again!??)

Last night I went to my first Broadway show- Pippin. Walking out of the theatre I was completely mind blown. Putting aside the amazing talented singers, dancers, actors (all twirled into one) and body twisting, fire throwing, triple flipping amazingness- I think.... I might be Pippin?! I know I'm not a boy and last time I checked I'm no Prince but as I sat there in the audience I could have been Pippin singing on stage (if I could sing).  Pippin is on the quest of fulfilment... one thing leads to the next, which leads to the next and he truly believes he must live an extraordinary life because "there has to be more than this". Well I hear you Pippin! 

I am travelling into my 6 month of something more. 

As I walked home the other night I thought about my 6 months here, is it long? Is it short? Is this real?
It still feels like a dream. It doesn't feel that I actually packed my suitcase and boarded a plane away from all I knew. But it fits. Life in New York City fits so wonderfully. When I walk through the streets,  meet my friends, hail a taxi or look somewhere familiar to eat... it just fits.

Fall has begun. A brand new season with so much beauty. And I like this time. 

I still haven't figured everything out yet. I don't know when I will. But I know I'm closer and I am stumbling across some wonderful opportunities and some wonderful people.

So when you find you've steered off the track or perhaps you took a wrong turn, it's never too late to turn around and pick another path that looks even better or grab some bricks and lay your own. 

Why keep walking down the path with holes and dog poop when you can see a pretty one across the lake?

Jump in, swim across... and see what that other path is .

 As Pippin's Grandma would say....

"Less thinking, more living".

xx

"New York may not be for life, but life for now"

We all know the story of Harry Potter. And because of Harry we know about Daniel Radcliffe and because of Harry, Daniel will have a hard time being anyone BUT Harry. It's who he is known for, it's why he is known, it's what people see and also what they want to see. So how does Daniel become someone other than Harry?

He starts again.

As you grow and morph, it is often hard to shake the skin that once formed your being. Who I was at 5 was not who I was at 10 and who I was at 15 was not who I was at 20. Sometimes people see the face, hear the voice and it is one of the same. And occasionally, when looking in the mirror, you don't see the difference either. Life keeps moving, whether we're ready to move or not and judgement is a funny thing. People will begin a sentence with "ok, no judging but...." and others say "I don't care, I'll judge..." and whether good or bad, people form opinions and from those opinions, words and actions are created. 

Moving countries (towns, cities, schools or workplaces) undoubtedly provides an opportunity to begin something new. Sometimes thats precisely the reason we do move. That is... IF you're ready to be something new. Making friends in New York has been like getting dressed in the mornings with no mirror. You're not sure what you look like to these people, how you sound (have you ever listened to a recording of your own voice- do I really sound like that?! Ugh!). Is that a mask they're wearing or is it real?

I spent a lot of my childhood in rural Tasmania, I made my friends when I was 3 years old and when I returned for high school at 15, my friends introduced me to new friends, and from here, everyone became a link to someone new. I always 'knew' who my new friends were and they 'knew' me. There are not many 'brand new' people in rural areas and if they are, everyone knows who they are. When you date someone, you will most likely know all their ex girlfriends. You break up and you'll probably know their new girlfriend. There are links within links, within links. And this can be a nice thing and an annoying thing. When I lived in Sydney, a similar story happened. While Sydney isn't small, with 4 million people, 'making friends' wasn't a brand new beginning. Again, I had links within links. 

Whats your point Rachel?

My point is. You're never a clean slate. You are who you are 'known' to be. And when you're ready to morph and grow, it can be difficult to do this, it takes time. Moving to New York, I unintentionally became a clean slate and something I didn't realise until only last week. Sitting with a friend around her kitchen counter, sipping on our second glass, we began talking about the parts of me I hadn't spoken about before. For the past 2 months, our friendship was in the present. What we brought to the table was our connection on traveling, New York and Australia. We hadn't ever needed to unpick our pasts because they were irrelevant, we knew we wouldn't hold any links in the past to each other- so why discuss it? I wouldn't know the school she attended or her best friends best friend. As I spoke about my family in Australia, my friends and where I went to school... she was surprised. The 'idea' of who I was to her here, was not the same as the words I was speaking. She had been certain I was some rich private school girl, sheltered, educated, with no grey areas. I wasn't sure whether to blush or hold back vomit. I was now operating in a world with connections I have made and with connections that remain because of me. It got me thinking. We really are what we are. Not who we think we are. And to watch our thoughts. The thoughts we form of the people we meet and of the people we think we 'know'. And it reminded me... you can be whoever you want to be Rachel. 

Sunday the 22nd of September marked 5 months in America. And it is only just now that I am finding my running feet. I had a friend visit from Australia this past weekend and as he observed New York from his eyes, I felt like I was listening to myself several months ago. There was an underlying love for the city but a little of "yeah but I don't get what the big deal is! It's loud, so many people, it's dirty, there are homeless everywhere...". And I know I have said each and every one of those things. New York and I had a love hate relationship. As I spoke with my friend, most elements of New York were being compared to Australia. And again, I could hear myself. In my first month here I remember sitting around a table with my two American guy friends, M & R. We had cooked food and I was picking up the bottles of food expressing my outrage at the ingredients, Ranch dressing in particular. I would kick off most sentences with "Well, in Australia..." and then all of a sudden M turned to me and he said, "you can go back to Australia if you want you know". It felt like he had just thrown the Ranch dressing in my face. What did he mean by that?! Why would he say such a thing? But 5 months later... I get it. Quit comparing, because it just ain't the same. Never will be. Never should be. And that's why I'm here, that's why we're all here. Because this crazy chaos is a little like a lullaby. New York City has its trash in the streets, its homeless on the corners, its steam flowing out of the subways, the cracks in the sidewalks and horns that fill the air. But thats.what.its.all.about. There are men and women who spend their lives living out to sea on boats in the ocean or on isolated farms in the middle of the country. These landscapes all differing from one another, but those who choose to live there... call it home.

You cannot compare yellow to green or stones to water. It makes no sense. And I'm fast learning that you've got to be some kind of crazy to keep the pace in this city. Crazy in love that is. Because this isn't a medicore city. This is a hurricane of chaos that will knock you flat if you're not strong enough for it. And as a result of this... you're not going to get a good reception from fellow New Yorkers when you want to chat about "the stupid trash lining Manhattan streets" or "the food is just bad here in America" because those little elements are what form the lining of the streets. The noises, the chaos, the yelling and the horns. And by attacking that, you're attacking them. And I've seen the defensiveness of New Yorkers when they hear it. You may as well look at a picture of their child and tell them it's ugly. You'll get the same response.

10 years ago I sat on the sand, looking out across the ocean. And now, I can sit on the concrete and look out across New York City. This concrete is my slate. My brand new slate.

 And right now... I wouldn't change a thing.

So in the words of my dear friend "New York may not be for life, but life for now". 

xxxx