Life doesn’t always go how you expect it to…

While reviewing this piece before I hit publish, if there’s one thing I hope you get out of it, it’s this:  I hope you learn to trust and love yourself so deeply, that you are filled with courage to live as authentically yourself as you possibly can - so that not only do you naturally become surrounded by people who will help carry you through to your dreams, but that no matter what hurdles and obstacles get thrown your way, you know you’ll always be okay, and you will get through it.

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I’m writing this to you from the floor of my friends living room in the Blue Mountains, at a time where I expected to be working 12hour shifts at a little beach town shop 7 hours south of where I am currently, but am instead recovering from an unexpected emergency appendix removal surgery…

I think it’s fair to say life has a funny way of evolving into things you never would’ve predicted for yourself.  I think if you’d asked me 5 years ago where I’d be today, I’d probably tell you “working at an architecture firm somewhere.”  If you’d asked me 3 years ago I’d probably say “working remotely for the zerowaste grocery store, helping source more sustainable products from different parts of the globe.” Last year I’d probably say “I just hope I’m somewhere happier than I am now.”

Fast forward to now.  In the past 3 months I went from thinking I wanted to be back in Vancouver, to flying back very regretfully, to flying BACK to Australia again to try to secure my ability of applying for PR, to having to get my appendix removed less than 5 days landing back in the country and now learning there’s a good chance I’ll no longer qualify for the 3rd WHV… all because I’ll be 9 days short…

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster to say the least.  I’ve put myself in positions that have required me to make a lot of really big, emotional decisions quite quickly and quite frequently.  To the point where I feel like I’m actually getting pretty good at being able to listen to my mind/body and what it’s asking of me.

One of my biggest challenges I’ve had to navigate since my mom passed in late 2019 was simply learning who I am.  It wasn’t until her passing that I realized I relied so much on external opinions to form who I am as an individual, that I couldn’t even fill out a basic buzzfeed quiz without asking others what my answers should be. It was a brutal awakening and probably (weirdly) the hardest obstacle to overcome.

I can’t say I know myself 100%, because the beauty of being an open-minded and endlessly curious person is that life will always find ways of showing you how to grow and evolve and change.  But I can say I finally feel like I’ve worked through the hardest parts of learning who I am and have confidently built a strong enough foundation that I can continue to build on top of as life continues to happen.

It hasn’t been an easy process getting to this point.  It’s involved a lot of brutally honest conversations with myself and others; it’s involved disappointing and letting down a lot of people; it’s involved trying a lot of new things and confronting a lot of fears; it’s involved a lot of therapy of various forms;  it’s involved getting really comfortable with being on my own and actually enjoying my own company;  it’s involved a lot of tears and loss and pain and confusion… but ultimately it’s involved learning to get really curious and to not shy away from that curiosity.

What I feel most excited about with having this foundational understanding of who I am at my core is that I feel like I get to move into this next phase of life of growing into the person I really want to be.  I get to push myself in ways I haven’t before because I now have the capacity, energy, and space to focus on challenging myself - rather than investing it all into just figuring out who tf I even am.  I know who I am, and now I get to focus on expanding that.

Inherently this means even bigger challenges and living a little bit bigger.  For me, my next big things I want to focus on are my physical and professional growth.  I’ve never really actively pursued a lot of physical goals I’ve always had (frankly because I’ve been scared to - I didn’t grow up as an athletic kid and feel pretty insecure in my physical abilities, and have a looooong ways to go between where I’m at and what my goals are); and my professional dreams have always been viewed as “hobbies,” so not a lot of belief has been put into the possibility of them becoming a reality.   What’s shifted most regarding this though has been surrounding myself with and meeting more people living that life I’ve always aspired, and seeing how possible it really is.

We can’t do this life alone - not if we have big goals and dreams to get after…

Stay passionate and curious,

Hunter 💛