Thursday, 29 December 2016

Flying the Nest

I've finally flown the nest.

Moving out. Those two words I thought I'd put into action many years ago when I finished Uni. I thought I'd be the girl who never came back home after Uni. I pictured myself living in London or maybe New York, working in a high rise building, living in a high rise building, working for a blue chip company and being a 'proper grown up.' But life doesn't always go the way you think does it?

I became a home bird. I loved spending time with my family. I didn't like change, I didn't like separation and I didn't like thinking about life without my family. But things do change and seperation does happen. Relationships end, people get sick and sadly we all leave this earth at some point...

These experiences taught me to cope better with big changes in life but at the same time it made me become more anxious. I worry about people a lot. Perhaps by being at home this whole time I felt like I had a comfort blanket, something there to protect me from the bad stuff? But the bad stuff happens anyway, right?

I've been so lucky to have such a close knit family. My parents, my brother and I are all so close. We've all followed different paths and we've all been through our own ups and downs but no matter what we stick by each other.

My mum and I are incredibly close.

We have PJ nights with endless hours of boxsets and plenty of chocolate. We can gossip for hours about an article we've read on the Daily Mail App (guilty pleasure!). We bake. We shop. We laugh hysterically. We support each other through the storms without judgement. Like two peas in a pod.

Being at home, I thought I'd never grow up (that's my inner Peter Pan right there!) and the boxset binges would never end.

Circumstances change, life throw's you a curve ball, you fall in love, you suddenly feel like an adult. And voila - you're on a totally different track to where you thought you were going. But that's okay, that's the pathway that fate leads you to and that's the pathway to your next chapter.

For me, instead of that high rise flat and that high flying job, I've just moved to a beautiful village in the middle of the countryside and I earn my living by being a digital freelancer with a passion for reading books. It might not be what I dreamt when I was a little girl but right now I'd say I'm living the dream.

Life is all about chasing those dreams. Dreams can change and alter. What makes the dream real is a feeling of wholeness, contentment and happiness. Accepting that whatever has been and whatever will be is out of our hands and what is happening right now is all just part of our exciting journey.

So hey, it might have taken me longer than others to flap those wings and fly the nest but in that time I've ironed out some new hopes, I've learnt a few lessons and without really even thinking about being 'an adult', I've reached adulthood with open arms bigger than I imagined.

It's okay to be a bit different isn't it?
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