As you may recall, or you can catch up with this post, my guy and I have been friends (at times with benefits) for a really long time. So long, in fact, that when he brought a book to my house that I handmade and gave him 11 years ago I had actually clean forgotten about it.

I’ve been experiencing a little beige period at the moment where my mojo seems to have left the building. This feeling started after Africa and has just multiplied and grown like some kind of fungus that I can’t quite scrape off.

“Let your light shine. Shine within you so it can shine upon someone else.”

It’s infiltrating many parts of my life which heralds to me that something has to change because frankly, it feels poo. Transitions are a really normal part of life. In fact, it’s way more normal than staying stagnant, however, that does not make them easy.

Transitions can be scary. Whether you’re changing jobs, or leaving a relationship, or some less obvious transition of the soul it can be similar to a rebirthing or something weird and messy that leaves goo all over your life. I’m experiencing the latter.

“When we were children we thought when we grew up we would no longer be vulnerable, but to grow up is to accept vulnerability, to be alive is to be vulnerable.”

Madeleine L’Engle

I’m a little bit dramatic when it comes to my emotional shit so I don’t keep that stuff bottled up. This is for a couple of reasons… a) I have a huge mouth and can’t keep quiet about shit and b)I think it’s totally fine to bring this upside down life stuff out of the closet because everyone feels it at some time or another.

Luckily for my guy, he doesn’t live with me so he missed a couple of days of weeping and gnashing of teeth, but when he came to stay for the weekend he brought that book I had given him 132 full moons ago.

“Love is not a decision, it is a feeling. If we could choose who we loved life would be much simpler, but much less magical.”

Trey Parker & Matt Stone

It was a birthday present. An absolute tight-arse gift which was a covered notebook with printed pictures from my travels stuck in it (excuse the iPhone photos of said photos but it’s convenient.) Then I wrote wise words in scrawly gold texta with my messy script.

I can no longer recall where I found said words, maybe fortune cookies, maybe bathroom walls, but it’s not important.

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the the freedom to make mistakes.”

Ghandi

He found this book on its shelf, dusted it off (I’m presuming; his house is actually much tidier than mine) and bought it to remind me of all the travels and adventures I had done, and the times I encouraged him to be fearless and bold.

He said he would just leave the book here at my house so I could keep referring to its pages until I felt better about stuff, which he predicted would not be too long (optimism is sexy, huh?).

“Do not go where the path may lead, instead go where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I flicked through those pages it was like visiting old friends. I was reminded of the night I slept in the freezing cold car on a mountainside in East Timor. I remembered the chicken and beer stew we ate the night before, cooked on the campfire with in a big pot. I remember being sad the beer went in the stew. What a surprise.

I remembered the night I slept next to my stinking, bad tempered camel whose name was Johnny Walker. We were in the desert up near the Pakistan border and I sang silly songs with our guides just to see them smile.

A rooftop in Morocco, powdered die in India, a child on a mountain, all just old friends from moments past… with surprisingly profound words that suited my current predicament exquisitely.

All of these memories came flooding back and overflowed out of my eyes in rivers and it was like a dam finally burst and I snotted all over his shoulder with ugly sobs. I don’t know why I sometimes wig out and completely lose my shit, but I’m not embarrassed about it.

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”

Neitzche

Each time the sun peaks up again and like dawn’s early rays drying the droplets across a field in the morning with her golden touch, I slowly come out of it again. Sometimes a little fragile and wobbly, and sometimes like a phoenix.

“Never apologise for showing feelings. When you do so you apologise for truth.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Anyway, I’m going to hang on to the book for a while. It’s right here if he needs it for a stint of his own, and in case you need it for a little bit of that wisdom for yourself I’ve shared a little of it here.

Maybe you’ll find a gem too.

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