I’m currently sitting in my brother’s backyard in Greenwich, Connecticut, while he’s at work and the rest of the family are at the local country club proving that summer can be used as a verb. It’s an incredible, privileged life they live and I’m so grateful I get to insert myself into their world over here, albeit temporarily. I could not comprehend the scale of wealth and privilege here without seeing it myself. It’s hard to describe to friends back home. The past few weeks have been a string of delicious meals, cold drinks, boating, hikes, sports and laughter. Lots of laughter.
I’m 3 weeks into 6 months of travel and feel myself slowly releasing grip on the life I was so entrenched in before. Letting go of the work, the deadlines, the expectations, the shame, the relationship, the life. I’m getting the distance I wanted and it’s feeling good. I’m building the perspective I wanted and it’s bringing clarity.
Blowing your life up as you’re staring down your 30th birthday is no small feat, and I’m baffled by the depth of mental, emotional and physical impact it continues to have. More than anything else though, I can’t get over how undeniably right it all feels.
We broke up just over 7 months ago.
I said goodbye to my life being his partner, mourned the future that didn’t end up being ours. We spent 8 years together, taking the path of least resistance and thoughtlessly building a life together. Nothing felt bad, so we just kept on keeping on.
We did love each other and built the kind of life a lot of people dream of, we just weren’t quite made to fit. The futures we wanted weren’t as aligned as we thought. We didn’t actually like each other as much as we thought. So now we’re building the lives we do want. Separately.
We sold the house just over 3 months ago.
We stamped a close on our story, selling the house we bought and renovated together. A bitter sweet moment. We sat in a corner of a back bedroom we never really used, listening to the auctioneer proposition bidders to buy the home I thought we’d start a family in. We held hands as they closed the auction and confirmed a price tag that would dictate how easily we could go our separate ways and set up our new lives. We both knew then that we’d be ok, we got the reassurance we both needed at the time. We’d be ok.
Selling the house was one of the more obvious book ends of our chapter, but I’ve learnt there isn’t any kind of solid close to a chapter, really. Some things take time, and some things might never actually get the close you think they need. But I’m grateful for the closure we’ve managed to get, propelling us both into the next phases of our lives.
I got on the plane 3 weeks ago.
This whole break-up/life-uplift process made me take stock and think about what I really want for my life (if it wasn’t what I already had), and I kinda fell short on answers. All I knew was that I wanted to hug some people I love, meet new people and spend time in landscapes I hadn’t seen before. In that order.
So I put in for 6 months of leave from work and booked a ticket. First stop is to hug friends and family whom I love and haven’t seen in too many years. Then it’s off to see some new parts of the world.
Three weeks in and I’ve managed to put a good dint into my goals already. I started by hugging two friends I hadn’t seen in a decade, got immersed in their lives and caught up on 10 years of life stories. I met them in 2015 in Denmark for our study abroad semester and they hadn’t changed one bit since. Immensely satisfying and soul-soothing seeing them, laughing with them, getting to know them even more.
I’ve also spent most of the 3 weeks with my brother and his wife and kids, who I hadn’t seen in 6 years. The kids are all young adults and my brother and sister-in-law are getting older. That seems like a funny thing to say, but I think the more time you’re on this earth, the more you notice and understand aging. You notice how people’s emotional and mental states pave their path and you see their faces, actions and lives painted with the years of decisions they’ve made, or not made. They’ve built an awesome life here and I’ve always looked up to them, and this trip I think I’m seeing more humanity in them.
It’s awesome getting to contribute to the kids’ lives while I’m here too. Drop them at soccer or swimming or rugby. Stay up late singing karaoke and doing handstands. Let them take sneaky sips of my drink. Tell them they look like such-and-such cousin.
I’m also very grateful and increasingly aware of being privy to thousands of tiny little moments you definitely don’t get on FaceTime.
Seeing how my niece’s whole body relaxes when she smiles, how my brother melts like a puddle when one of his daughters does something cute, how my nephew rolls into the driveway beaming at the sight of his dog waiting for him to come home, how my friend’s husband treats her with such love an reverence, how my sister-in-law breathes such life into their house, how hard my brother and sister-in-law work to fight for their kids to give them the life they have.
All these little things I’m seeing, learning from, loving. All these wonderful gems of life I get to collect. Just makes me excited for more.
Notes from a semi-reformed tomboy 