The Times They Are a-Changin'

Changes can happen overnight, instantaneously or gradually. But we all change, all the time, and when we comment that someone hasn't changed, we're wrong. That person will have changed, perhaps not in a ground-shifting life-altering way that irrevocably changes who they are, but they will have changed in little ways, by small degrees.

I have changed so much in the last 12 months. Trek is the obvious catalyst to a new perspective of my life. Before Trek, I would never have planned a year abroad in Australia. I cried when I went away on Trek, when my mum and nan came to wave me off. I'm tearful thinking about it now. And that was only for a month.

A year is very different to a month. (No shit, Sherlock)
A year alone is very, very different to a month with a best friend and a random group of people you have to spend everyday with.

34 days left to go, and I'm scared. So scared. I'm terrified because I'm going into the unknown. Fearful of the things I'll find, or won't find. Scared that what I'm leaving won't still be here when I come back. I think the stupid craziness my brain has been dealing me the last week or so is down to me desperately feeling the need to make more roots here.

But the fear isn't stopping me from going. My excitement, my expectations, my desperation to explore, the bubbles of curiosity are carrying me ever closer.

A lot can change in a year. I've changed a lot in a year. I'm not expecting to come back in a year, or however long I go for, and everything be as it was when I departed.

I think that's one of biggest evolutions you can go through. Understanding that things change, and that it's okay. Accepting it, and embracing your own changes.

Evolving Forwards, Not Stuck Behind.

A List of Dislikes

I have a new tattoo.
It hurt like a b**ch to have it done.
It dislikes a lot of things.

For example, it dislikes bending over in certain ways.
It dislikes walking too fast (I haven't even attempted to run). It dislikes stairs, and taking steps down off the kerb. It dislikes most movements, actually.
It dislikes the pressure of the wind. It dislikes a hand in a coat pocket on top of it.
It dislikes clothes against it. It dislikes me putting on these clothes, and taking off these clothes. 
It dislikes being touched, even when it's getting covered in soothing, moisturising cream. 

But I absolutely love it to goddamn pieces. The less it sticks to my clothes, the more the pain decreases, the more I fall in love with it.
Is this the way to love your body? By drawing on it with needles? 

The night before I got it done I dreamt I overslept and missed the appointment. When I then woke up before my alarm, I decided to get up, just in case.

But also that night before I started to panic about whether it would look good. Not that the design would look good, but whether it would look good on me. Whether I should have lost weight before having it done, so that my body would look better. 
As it turns out, I like the way it sits just before the curve of my hip. 
And when I showed my sister when I uncovered it for the first time, she said "You're so skiiinnyyy." Which I wasn't expecting. 

If the remedy of body dislike is to tattoo it with the things you love, then I will continue to cover it. 
Except maybe not on my ribs next time.

Perhaps I am simply trying to exert some control over my physical entity, which continually denies me control if you look to my headache as an example. And also because I just can't seem to stop eating these bourbons.