New Year, New Me

Today while looking for old blogs I should have deleted years ago, I came across one entitled ‘Prim and Alex’s Gap Year’. It must have been created when I was about sixteen, with my best friend at the time (and now, sorry to suggest otherwise). It wasn’t an actual plan, just a shared Tumblr blog where, for a few weeks at least, myself and Primrose posted various pictures of people walking on beaches; hiking through rainforests and relaxing in hammocks. I laughed to myself and copied the link to send to Primrose before I horrid thought came to me. While, five years on, I was still sitting in my bedroom blogging about foreign travel, Primrose was out doing it. I had only had a couple weeks to catch up with her before Christmas as she was between coming home from working in Greece and getting packed to work out in New Zealand for a year. This isn’t even to mention her time in Australia, and biking back home through Europe. I wasn’t jealous of her, I have genuinely never been so happy to see someone else succeed, just disappointed in myself. I have let five years pass since our big plan without acting on it.

In my own defence, I have made some steps towards the life I intended to lead in 2017. In June I travelled with my boyfriend to Rome, Italy. Sure, I complained for the whole week about it being too hot (hot in Rome, in the summer? Shocker!) but even now, just remembering how it felt to lean out of our apartment window into the warm evening air, listening to the band playing at the cafe downstairs and hearing voices shout out in Italian gives me real pleasure and inspires me into more travel. I have also made my first and second and third solo plane journey. Sure, my dad dropped me off at one end and picked up at the other by my boyfriend, and yes, I didn’t actually technically leave the country but it was a big step for a girl who used to have anxiety about getting the bus into town. Celebrate the little things!

Now that I have, somewhat, pushed past my travel anxiety, I have big plans for more of it in 2018. Money seems to be a serious issue with that though. I need to work, but then I can’t travel for extended period of times and I can’t travel without money from a job. I also have a wish to move in with my boyfriend, which again, is reliant on a job or at least some savings. My current job, if you could even call it that, is based on a four-hour contract at minimum wage. It saves me from always dipping into my savings for nights out, but not much else. This isn’t really a complaint about the current job market, just an admittance that I am really flipping lazy. I am hoping this year that my yearning for travel and my fear of wasting the ‘best years of my life’ will overtake my laziness though. I have also seriously considered travelling abroad for work; best of both worlds. New Zealand is in constant need of young, qualified workers and it’s been at the top of my list for a while. Not to mention, I get to visit Prim. (Full circle!)

2017 was not a bad year for me at all, but 2018 will be the year I’ll at least try to start doing something with my life, other than closing Facebook just to open it again. I am hoping posting about it on the internet will lead to some progress, but if not, it at least gives me something to show as a writing portfolio.

Photo credit: Alexey Lickutov