I love how, when we are young, we plan what we think our lives will (or should) be. Oh, the sweet, innocent naivety of youth!We make decisions about whether we want to go to university or get an apprenticeship; whether we want a career to be our driving force or maybe our family. Some may set their sights on becoming a professional athlete or having a career on the stage.
Perhaps the dream is to be married at 25 followed by three kids by the time we are 35. Naturally, we will have bought our first modest home by around the age of 30 and by the age of 40, have upgraded to our dream property complete with pool and a dog and cat.
Maybe we have our sights set on a honeymoon in Paris and a holiday with kids years later to Disneyland
I was like that. Pretty sure I would be married by 30, have had a successful career as an international correspondent for a reputable news outlet and probably mother to two or three children. Having a dog was a no brainer.
But life managed to get in the way of my careful planning as I reckon it does for most people.
I fell pregnant at 24 to my then partner with whom I shared a torrid and volatile relationship which imploded soon after we found out I was pregnant (this, despite being told by a number of doctors that I would never have children). Our son was to be my only child and, by far, my greatest blessing in life.
Plans of being a war correspondent were quickly shelved as motherhood became my new reality. So I ended up at university, determined not to become the stereotyped single, uneducated, impoverished parent.
I finished uni and found I was still a single and impoverished mother. My education helped broaden my mind, but not my bank account.
Years later, and a host of mundane and some bizarre jobs later, my life started to take shape more in line with my original planning – definitely due more to good fortune than good planning. I had finally purchased our first home and was working for an international publishing company where I travelled extensively. 
At this stage, I was pretty sure my life was set. Sure, I wasn’t married and had no more children, but I did have my wonderful son, the career I wanted, our own home and the dog.
And then life threw me another curveball and this one was a biggie. I stumbled into an attempted murder and, in the blink of an eye, my life was never to be the same again. 
For a while, I tried to stay in the corporate world of international publishing, but, well, frankly I no longer was able to do the job properly.
I quit my job, confident my healthy savings would see me through whatever was to come. I did not expect 21 months of unemployment and again found myself utterly impoverished.
I have a part-time job now working for a non-profit organisation, which I love and which almost pays my bills (the exact opposite of corporate employment!). My mind is nowhere near as sharp as it used to be, international travel is but a distant memory and my moods sway sharply as post traumatic stress and I continue our daily dance.
My son, who I had hoped would become a guitar-playing surfer, has no interest in the guitar or surfing and is studying to be a politician. He harbours plans to help change the world and improve life for the most disadvantaged.
For me, absolutely nothing went to plan, and finally, I’m alright with that. My life could not be further away from what I had hoped and dreamt of. But I have a roof over my head, family and friends who I love dearly and I am doing work which is about serving others, not my own small dreams.
Perhaps a married life in suburbia would have grated torturously against my adventurous spirit. Maybe I would have been utterly incapable of being a mother to more than one child. There is no guarantee I would have made it home from being a war correspondent.
I don’t know why life turns out so very differently to what many of us plan. Maybe a higher power knows our needs better than we do or we are incapable of dreaming big enough.
I still make plans, sometimes daring the Universe to do it’s best to thwart them and at other times praying I can get something I am dreaming of. After all, what is life without dreams?
The difference now, is I accept there is only so much I can control in my life, and it is less than I had thought. 

I am the kind of person who likes to work. Actually, I love working. I am not someone who can sit idly around and hope for the best.

So this period of ongoing uncertainty around employment and what appears to be no prospects for any kind of meaningful full-time work has struck me hard. Job applications, searching websites, networking, cold calls and emails, juggling money, trying desperately to keep my home. Wanting certainty where there is only uncertainty.

It reminds me of being in a similar position a couple of years ago when I had resigned from my corporate job in search of meaning and reason.

I found myself stuck in a mountain guest house on the Nepalese side of the Himalayas. I wanted desperately to keep trekking but I was terribly out of shape and overweight and the previous 10 days or so had taken every last ounce of energy this office worker had within her.

My guide Dipak and I spent three days hanging at Landslide – honestly, this was the name of the small well, um,village of a couple of houses and guest houses. My calves had packed it in completely and I could barely move. It wasn’t just my legs mind. My whole body ached in a way I did not entirely know was possible. But it was my legs which called an end to the insanity by going on strike! Truly, I was hostage to my calves in Landslide.

The guest house was rudimentary, at best. The beds were horrible and to get to each room you had to climb these stairs I felt had been built in a hurry. For a woman whose calves were not working, this proved somewhat problematic. Worse still were the two huge steps you needed to climb down to the squat toilet. A squat toilet with screaming, protesting calves!

I spent most of my time in my small, basic room which included a thin mattress, thick blanket, a candle and some matches. Out of the large window, I had a breath-taking view of the snow covered mountains of the Himalayas and I listened to the roar of the glacial runoff which formed a rapidly flowing river. We trekked by the river, crossed it using rickety metal bridges, and were comforted by its pounding noise which echoed through the mountains.

On day two at Landslide I was lying on the window seat watching a troupe of monkeys play as they crossed the river below. Protective adults tried to hoard the younger monkeys on to the other side and out of safety but the young monkeys just wanted to play and were oblivious of the dangers. They called to each other, wrestled and rumbled, hugged and held hands. I was envious of them until Dipak pointed out the snow leopard perched high on one of the mountains. He was looking down at the monkeys as the sunset filled the sky with magical colours. Then one of the adults either saw the leopard or sensed it or smelt it and the panicked cry of this adult sent the young ones scurrying to elders who would protect them. Within seconds the monkeys were gone.

At that point the song “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac jumped into my head. The words ran through my mind over and over again. It felt as if they were describing the latest couple of months of my life – in an abstract way, but nevertheless. Climbed a mountain and I turned around. Saw my reflection in a snow-covered mountain. Being afraid of change. The song felt as if it was summing up my life which had come to a standstill.

I was totally lost and had no idea where I would be going next and what awaited me. It was scary; terrifying even. But a part of me didn’t care because I was in Nepal, in the Himalayas watching monkeys play in glacial runoff. Right then, in that moment, my life felt complete and the pain in my legs began to feel like a badge of courage and success.

The following day my legs had not really recovered despite the constant leg massages Dipak offered me. We talked and played cards and shared jokes with the brother and sister who ran the guest house and I again was able to settle in for the daily monkey show. What magic.

The final night we stayed I was about to embark on the torturous journey up the stairs to my room when Dipak pushed me to the side with one hand while grabbing a small snake with his other hand. I asked him if it was a dangerous snake “it is a little deadly” Dipak offered confidently!

Enough was enough and we finally called in the – wait for it – evacuation horse!!!!! I was strapped on to the saddle, literally with towels and shirts and all manner of impromptu strapping, and off we went with this incredibly, incredibly old man gently encouraging the horse to move along. It was a long trip down and over the over the horse threatened to topple over the side of the mountains. It was terrifying in its way.

Finally we hit the closest township outside the trekking area, found some rooms and ordered scotch. While our perilous journey had taken about two hours it, was still quite early, about 8am. However the more Dipak explained to me that about 60% of people being evacuated from this area are seriously injured as they are evacuated out, we poured another drink and then another!

I find myself emotionally in the same place now as I was when I was in Landslide. Except I am not in Nepal looking at monkeys in the Himalayas.

This time I am in my home. I have become reclusive as I contemplate what the future may hold. Finding enough work to cover my bills is becoming increasingly difficult and in the current environment, I have joined the masses of those newly without work security, fighting the growing fear and pessimism.

And I am very much aware I am not the only one in this position. The number of people I know who have lost their jobs in the last two years is mind-boggling. Many of them are battling bills and banks and sliding self-esteem. I feel for them. I feel for myself.

I don’t mind having been stopped for a period of self-reflection, but if I have to be broke and unemployed, I would much rather be watching frolicking monkeys as I contemplate it all.

For those who have lost their jobs, I hope that in between the stress and worry, you find your version of Himalayan monkeys, whatever that may be.

Until last week there was an idyllic little oasis tucked away in the Himalayan mountains in Nepal. It was a village called Langtang and was the second last stop on a trek which inexplicably was not as popular as logic would suggest.

Snow peaked mountains, warm hospitality, over-priced water, fickle electricity supply and broad, beautiful smiles on the faces of the locals.

This place sits in my heart as one of the most important I have ever been too on my own personal journey. It is important to me in ways words could never fully articulate or capture. It was here in Langtang my faith in this world slowly started to be restored after a horrific act of violence I had accidentally walked in on.

But Langtang no longer exists.

After the 7.8 magnitude earthquake which shook Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu on April 25, bringing down ancient buildings and treasured monuments and claimed the lives of at least 7,500 people, a glacial avalanche led to a landslide which quite literally obliterated this little hamlet and those who lived there.

The guest houses are gone. The yaks which grazed lazily in the open fields are gone. The men, women and children who called this place home are gone. The stumpas are gone. The cheese factory is gone. The facade of one lone building stands. There is nothing else left. Nothing. Just silence in what has now been described as the worst hit village in Nepal from this catastrophic natural disaster.

And it breaks my heart.

I was there this time two years ago. I talked with the locals, shared meals and local brew and bad jokes. We played cards and danced as my guide Dipak sang traditional songs.

I slept off altitude sickness and slurped home-made garlic soup. I proudly took photos of my blistered and snow-burnt face. I watched the women tend the fields for 12 hours a day while the men sat around and smoked.

I witnessed my first ever storm in the Himalayas and watched breathlessly as the lightning burst into rainbows of colour as it had nothing but snow to reflect off. I glimpsed a snow leopard skulking through the mountains.

I have never been so entranced. And knowing it is all gone is devastating.

The people of Nepal have a monumental journey ahead of them as they work to rebuild their lives which were already impoverished. But Nepal as a country has a soul no other country I have been to could match.

While Nepal is a country which allows us westerners to remove ourselves from so much of the bullshit which is our gadget-filled, time-poor lives, it is home to 27 million people who will all be touched in some way by this tragedy.

Nepal is a country which has given so much to so many. Now is the time for us to give back. If you cannot afford to give your money, please give your prayers. They will be needed.

In the last few years I have been lucky enough to undertake some trippy adventures through India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. I have also undergone many journeys of self discovery which are outwardly much less interesting.

But to me this is what life is all about – adventures, journeys, learning about who we are and, hopefully, reaching an acceptance of that. This includes the good, the bad and the downright confusing and bizarre.

In the last few years I have discovered that I am a worker bee. My comfort zone is working. I love working; having a job which is challenging and rewarding and even comes with a regular pay check. I like the deadlines and the pressure. I love learning new things and expanding my horizons. I don’t even mind the waking up at 3am questioning whether I did a good enough job on a story or formulating a new intro to a story which had already been published.

So the journey of unemployment I am currently riding well, for someone like me who needs to be challenged and to interact with others on an intellectual level, really sucks.

The first couple of months were sweet, sweet relief. I was tired and run down and loved that I could sleep for hours and hours and hours. There were no alarm clocks. No deadlines. No one else’s demands.

I live in paradise and the beach is just down the road. I have been able to watch dozens and dozens of docos on SBS on Demand and ABC IView. I have sorted out a couple of health issues and have spent a great deal of time rebuilding relationships which slipped a little while I was working crazy hours under crazy pressure. My cat is enjoying the attention as is my small garden.

And the timing has been good. The cricket and tennis have been on. I even get to see the NFL Super Bowl on Monday because I don’t have to work.

I love these things. I really do. But boredom has started to kick in. And my finances are somewhat drained. I have toyed with the idea of selling my house and wandering around Nepal and India for a year or so. But I am built to work. It is a large part of who I am.

I have been applying for an average of 10 to 20 jobs every week. Each week I get about five rejection emails. I’m not sure what is worse – the rejection or the deafening silence from prospective employers who don’t realise or care that they are leaving frustrated jobseekers in limbo.

It rocks your confidence when you see a job you know you would be perfect for and could do really well only to get a rejection letter within hours. Apparently many employers don’t even read applications now; they just run them through a computer program which looks for key words. As someone who has always been uncomfortable with the growing power and intelligence of artificial intelligence, this is utterly unnerving. And annoying. Read the application guys.

And then there are the job applications which compiling are basically a full-time job in themselves. I guess I am, at the very least, refining more skills writing all these applications. There is always a silver lining, and I can see it most of the time. Occasionally I need to remove my sunglasses and look hard for it but it is there.

I know this is a journey I am not undertaking alone. More and more people in Australia are finding themselves travelling the same road. Some have chosen this road, many more have not. It is pretty scary not knowing what will come next.

When the fear sets in, I try to remind myself what the Sri Lankans say “all is as it is meant to be”. I’m sure they are right and the current shake up in the Australian employment market will see those of us on the unemployment road landing in the job we are meant to be doing. Let’s just hope it is soon.

;

WARNING: Strong hippie themes ahead

It was a small fishing village in Sri Lanka called Passikuda that my small little miracle occurred. Can we call any miracle small?
I had been totally lost for a very long time. My life had ceased making sense and no matter how much I acquired or let go of, I found myself in a constant state of dissatisfaction and fear.
I had been wandering around Sri Lanka for two weeks and was frustrated that my state of mind had not changed at all. I was plagued by nightmares about people from my past. I was getting desperate.
And then I decided to just stop. I was tired and while a part of me screamed that I must be out there discovering this small village, a greater part of me didn’t care where I was. I was just tired and needed to stop. If that meant it was a wasted day, so be it.
I started reading Paulo Coelho’s By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.
I had been carrying the book around with me but every time I started to read it, I found I could not concentrate.
I had had a particularly distressing nightmare the evening before and just wanted my mind to be quiet.
To my surprise, I was able to concentrate on the book. It was a pretty easy read.
I had just finished reading a section about the main character having to decide what kind of a woman she wanted to be – one held back by her past. Or one looking towards the future. These words resonated with me.
Only then did I notice the corner of a slip of paper curled within the pages of the book. I couldn’t tell you when I acquired the book or where, but this paper was a page out of a calendar from August 2000.
This was a particularly important year for me. I was raped in late July of 2000 and it messed me up pretty good. This slip of paper included a calendar of the month of July and the month of September. On the other side of it was a hand-written address for a place in North Sydney.
I had been raped in Sydney.
There was also a quote at the bottom: People’s minds are like parachutes. To function properly they must first be open.
What an epiphany!
I put down the book and decided I would wander to the Spiritual Art Gallery which was up the road and a place I had passed a few times in previous days but was only half-hearted lay drawn too.
I was given a tour by one of the caretakers who started talking to me about his belief that we are intellect, spirit and record.
I didn’t understand this last part so I pressed him. He explained that we have our mind and our spiritual connection but these operate through the record of our past – if we think things will turn out well because that’s what our record tells us, they will. If the record insists everything will be a disaster, then so it will be.
I was struck by this because the nightmares plaguing me had been of events from my past. The slip of paper in the book reminded me of a particularly painful incident in my life.
My life, while at times it had been magnificent, screamed fear and insecurity to me.
My trip to Sri Lanka had Been marked by a growing nervousness about money. I had quit my job in a poor job market only weeks after having taken out a mortgage. I knew it was the right thing to do because I was so terribly unhappy, but another part of me was saying simply “really”? It seemed ludicrous and I felt as if I was haemorrhaging money. My savings were dwindling faster than I had anticipated and I was ensconced in fear for my future. Would I get another job? Would I lose my house? Had I made a terrible, terrible mistake?
But I understand this afternoon in Passikuda, that I simply needed to have faith. It would work out. Or as the Sri Lankans kept saying to me “all is happens for good”.
Finally I understood that. I did not want to be a woman who kept playing a record of fear; I would be a woman who understood that everything indeed happens for good. And I feel set free by this.

Walking through the arrivals gate at Colombo’s international airport in Sri Lanka, I was struck by two things – the broad, warm smiles of the people I passed and the duty free stores. It may seem like an odd thing to notice duty free but I have travelled a fair bit these last few years and have never seen anything like it.
On the one side is the usual duty free store offering cigarettes and alcohol, perfume and chocolate (I have never understood why this is a duty free thing so if someone can explain it to me, I would be most grateful).
On the other side of the broad pathway leading to customs were dozens of small storefronts selling fridges, washing machines, televisions, clothes dryers – any large white good you would find in most western houses. It was as if Joyce Mayne, Harvey Norman, The Good Guys and Betta Electrical each set up three or four small stores within the airport. My head wrestled with the idea of picking up a fridge on the way out of the airport and then trying to hail down a taxi! I began to wonder if Sri Lankan people made the quick dash to Malaysia just so they could get a bargain television on the way back home.
As my mind pondered this, I wandered into the “mainstream” duty free shop to pick up a bottle of scotch. I know there are restrictions on what can be bought in so was content with just the one bottle before the staff helpfully encouraged me to buy another one or two ensuring me there would be “no problem” if I exceeded the allowance. I decided to stick with the law and bring in just the one bottle.
I approached the counter to pay for it and pulled out a small wad of Sri Lankan Rupee only to be told – with a warm broad smile of course – that Rupee was not accepted within the airport. Goods could only be paid for with foreign currency! I laughed because I thought the assistant was joking but his smile broadened and he assured me that was indeed the case as he encouraged me to exchange my foreign currency for Sri Lankan rupee once I had passed customs! I dutifully returned my Sri Lankan rupee back to my purse and paid for my one bottle of scotch in US dollars. Ah Sri Lanka, I already knew I was going to love this place.
I arrived at my accommodation after the usual Asian car ride – blaring horns, near misses, aspirational traffic lanes, passing tuk tuks and busses crammed with more people than one would have imagined conceivable.
There were three things I really wanted to do in Sri Lanka. One was watch a cricket match, one was receive some Ayurvedic healing and the third was eat some bloody good curries.
My host, it turned out, is an Ayurvedic healer and there is currently a cricket match between the Australian and Sri Lankan junior teams in Colombo. I am in heaven itself.
And then there is the food. My host in Colombo insisted I share a farewell meal with a Hungarian couple leaving that afternoon. I had eaten my fill on the plane but accepted a plate and placed mere morsels of food on it. I immediately regretted eating on the plane. Oh my goodness, my taste buds went into overdrive with the tastes. I could hardly wait to be hungry enough to enjoy the “light curry” I had requested for the evening meal.
Finally 6pm arrived and I went downstairs to eat. What awaited me was a table laden with food. Four massive curries (two veggie, one chicken and one potato), a salad, fried mushrooms things and rice. It was astounding and I quickly realised my plan to lose a few kilos of weight while in Sri Lanka was probably not going to happen.
Then my host helpfully informed me what awaited me at breakfast – cream rice which can be eaten with spices or honey, fresh roti bread, an egg curry and fruit salad. I insisted this was too much and could see her face fall ever so slightly. Now I am not one to deliberately offend so I will give that breakfast my best shot!
One day and already I know I made the right decision to come to Sri Lanka!

Delhi/Agra, India. May 14, 2012

I went to the Taj Mahal yesterday. As bizarrely calm as I have come to feel in Delhi, I was looking forward to a trip out of the chaos which is this city. I wanted a break from the persistent, endless, mindless, inane, judicious, ridiculous honking of horns and the long deep sprogging of snot before it is spat out.

My driver picked me up at 5.30am. The city was still dark as we set off into the countryside. It was as quiet as Delhi is ever going to get. I watched the sun come up over sprawling fields. I watched all manner of transport take to the streets from overcrowded buses to tuk tuks with a dozen people squished in, camels and bullocks drawing laden carts behind them, motorbikes and bicycles and cars and antique trucks. I saw people wash at communal water pumps and kids playfully heckle each other as they wandered off to school. This felt like a peek at the India not seen in the guidebooks. And I felt so blessed to be experiencing it.

Except for being on the roads. The lanes on Indian roads are aspirational at best, utterly disregarded at worst. A three lane road in India obviously can handle five lanes of traffic if the motorists try hard enough – and they do! Somehow though, there are remarkably few accidents. It’s as if everyone is just going with the flow and it works. I have found it best not to sit in the front seat of a car and definitely not look out the windscreen. Looking out a side window could be alarming but not terrifying so this became my preferred option.

After about five hours of travelling on the perilous roads, we were approaching Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. I was desperate to go to the bathroom and realised I would have to brave using a public toilet. Mmmmmmm.

Luckily I had some tissues with me so I entered the cubicle. I immediately started dry retching. The smell was, well, imagine the worst smell you can for a public toilet in India and you are probably getting close. At this stage I wish I had on a short skirt or just shorts but I knew you had to dress respectfully at the Taj, so I had on long pants. I had a problem. I had to decide whether I keep the legs of my pants from wading through other people’s urine or cover my nose. I went with the former while wishing I was the Hindu God Ganesh who has eight arms. Then I would have had a spare hand to hold my nose and stop dry retching as I sat astride a hole in the ground in the middle of bloody nowhere. I resolved there and then to drink as little as possible for the rest of the day as this was not an experience I ever wanted to repeat!

Anyways, the Taj Mahal. No motorised vehicles are allowed within a few kilometres of the area so you need to pack your water bottle, splash on sunscreen and your hat, and prepare for the long walk in searing heat. As you approach the grounds there are all these elephants – some with decorated trunks – being shopped around as taxis. They are massive beasts and defecate a lot so you are battling enormous crowds, huge piles of elephant dung and trying to not get run over by electric tuk tuks. Indian nationals by far account for the majority of tourists at the Taj, but there are also healthy numbers of international tourists wandering around dazed, overwhelmed or just in awe.

Just as the combination of the heat, distance and crowds seems too much to bear, you look up and there she is – the glorious Taj Mahal! It is impossible to not suck your breath in. The millions of photos and drawings of the Taj come to life before your eyes. It is real and the scale is beyond comprehension.

It was astonishingly beautiful. I actually cried when I saw it. Angkor Wat and the Great Wall of China have nothing on this baby. It is HUGE. MASSIVE. MAMMOTH. A TESTAMENT TO MAN’S INGENUITY.

My guide had studied the history of the Taj Mahal and was very keen to impart his knowledge. I was thankful to have someone so knowledgeable explain it to me. You either have to take your shoes off or cover them when you are inside the monument. Anyone who knows me understands my pure loathing of shoes. Oh my God, the feel of my bare feet on that cold, ancient marble was heaven itself. And the story. The Mogul, Shah Jahan, built it when his favourite wife (mmmph) died giving birth to their 14th child. Her name was MumTaj Mahal. The doctor had warned him to stop “having relations” with her as she wouldn’t survive another delivery, but he believed as a Mogul he was powerful enough to stop that.

She used to travel with him into battle (cause apparently that is the privilege of the favourite wife) and she gave birth while battle waged. He was sent for and legend goes that as her life force slipped away, she asked him to construct a small building so she would be remembered. I am not sure if it is a monument to guilt or love or because he misunderstood the word “small”. Either way, I’m glad he bothered. It took 20,000 workers 22 years to build and the ancestors of the artisans who worked on the carved and bejewelled marble continue to live just outside the walls of the Taj Mahal.

I was able to sit for a very long time outside in the forecourt and meditate and just enjoy its splendour and be grateful for the incredible opportunities my life has offered me. Seriously, I was sitting in front of the bloody Taj Mahal. And I laughed and then cried some more. The scope of the project, the years of dedication, the intricate craftsmanship, the history, the reverence.

Spending time in a place so ancient and so important historically, is humbling as an Australian where we have largely failed to recognise indigenous places of significance and western buildings have only been on the landscape for a couple of hundred years. Before I began travelling, I understood old buildings to be those found in The Rocks in Sydney which would not be older than 215 years. It really is funny when you consider it in that context.

Anyway, finally I needed to leave and was promptly taken to a number of local shops by my driver and guide despite my strong protests. But this is all part of the game and the key to surviving India is to just go with it man.

By the last shop I had had enough of the constant, frustrating badgering and haggling so I claimed I had no money, that an Indian had taken all my money and I was broke. Kind of true in that I had been ripped off a few days earlier by an Indian shopkeeper. The poor men in the shop, ancestors of craftsmen who had worked on the Taj Mahal, were so mortified by this they immediately offered me money. It was at this point that the generosity and warmth of the Indian people really dawned on me. Yet again I was humbled. Naturally I declined feeling a little guilty about the mistruth.

The trip back to the motel was fun because India was in the throes of celebrating the Hindu festival of colour – the Holi festival. While that means the whole country has completely shut down today – seriously, there is nothing happening and I wish I had bought a good book to fill in the day – the celebrations start early. That meant the ride back (four and a bit hours) we saw people being pelted with water bombs and dye bombs. The colours are amazing. You would see “people carriers”, which look exactly like cattle trucks crammed with people, throwing these colour bombs at other passing people carriers so there were these clouds and explosions of colour everywhere.

I was amazed on the approach back to Delhi to see a group of young girls aged probably between about three and six, begging for food or money, who found an exploded colour bomb on the ground and began covering each other in the purple, laughing their heads off, begging forgotten for a few moments.

It had been a long day. I was dehydrated and very, very hungry having gone with the only safe eating option of bananas for the entire 12 hour day. But I felt exhilarated. I had seen more of India. I had been to the Taj Mahal. Felt the cold, ancient marble beneath my feet as millions before me had. India had anchored itself as my spiritual home. I had fallen in love and know the affair won’t end soon.

I have written a lot about my travels in this blog and along the way the journey of healing. But that journey and the journey of self-discovery, self-realisation and self-acceptance is the longest journey of all.
I had cause at the weekend to reflect on the magnitude of the effect of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on my life. I would give anything not to have this; I have gone so far as to pretend to myself that I do not. But I do.
I walked in on a horrific act of barbarity and became trapped in that moment. The blood, the smell, the heat of that morning sticks to my skin like a jacket I cannot disrobe. I did not experience fear for myself in that moment, but horror and a desperate need to keep alive a friend and colleague. It was only after the police came that I realised how vulnerable I had been. How one man I had never before met would decide if I would escape that day with my life.
The fear set in after and has not left me since. It has been more than a year and I am still haunted by flashbacks and panic attacks and nightmares.
To the outside world, I think it appears as if I am normal, coping. But those close to me know there are days I struggle to keep the mask on. That my fragility can be seen and the vulnerability of that makes me furious.
There is an upside of course; there always is, sometimes hidden deep within the emotion, but if you look hard enough, you can find it.
A couple of days after the experience, I went to the beach and will never forget how damned good it felt to feel the wind. To be outside in the open, to not be in that room with the smell and the blood and the mad man and my friend whose life was slowly slipping away. I have embraced the wind ever since. It is a frequent reminder that every minute of my life is a blessing. I stretch out my arms and open my mouth and let the wind fill me up and cleanse me. Such a simple thing but the deepest, most tangible reminder of how lucky I am.
I have spent the last few months desperately wanting to get on a plane. To be somewhere else. To be someone else. But maturity and responsibility have kept me tied to the world. A blessing and a curse. I am grateful for my new job and the opportunities presented to me. I am grateful for my life and the fact my friend and colleague survived. I am grateful for the generosity of spirit and love my family and friends continue to afford me.
But I am also struggling to understand. And when the smallest incident triggers a severe anxiety attack when I least expect it, I struggle to understand the sense of it all.
I am getting on a plane again soon with my son. We are going to explore Japan together. And I am so looking forward to this.
But as terribly cliched as it sounds, I know I will also be taking myself with me. I cannot escape where I have been and what I saw that day. But hopefully with time it will lessen and gratitude will become the stronger of my emotions, the PTSD will abate and I will get my life back. Until then, I just have to hold on for all I am worth! Wish me luck.