The Weekly(ish) Update - Issue 0019

The Weekly(ish) Update

12th September 2010 - Issue Nineteen

Sometimes we need to remember just how lucky we really are…

This past week I have tied myself up in knots over and over again because things have seemingly not been going to plan, things have not moved towards where I want them to be as quickly as I want them to, and in a variety of situations I feel I have let myself down by not achieving everything that I have planned to do already. I think I need a break to get myself back together.

After having achieved such a huge goal when I completed cycling around New Zealand on my own, there is now a feeling that I want to achieve more in my life, to do more than I have been doing, than I am doing, and it is that feeling that I guess you could say that I am struggling to conquer. There is a huge part of me that now believes I can do so much, and because I have not yet achieved anything more than I set out to do, no reward I guess you could say, that part of me is restless.

I have learnt that even though it is ok to be who I am, life sometimes have a way of taking us places we need go.. My life at the moment is telling me I need to step back and look where I am, to truly see where I want to be.. What’s the worst that could happen?

As you get older you’ve learnt the hard way right and wrong, when you are younger, or haven’t learnt the hard way, you don’t grasp the concept of reactions to your actions, and the results of which are often defining moments in our lives.

A very long time ago one of my nephew’s was given a hand made necklace by my birth mother around the time he was born. The necklace was given to him to look after until I returned to New Zealand to collect it, and today I want to share with you just part of the journey that I travelled before I came back to collect that very special gift.

As most of you know I was adopted, and for a variety of reasons as I grew up I rebelled against everything that had the potential to hurt me, mostly because I didn’t know any different, but also because it was more fun at the time. I certainly didn’t mean to hurt anyone.

It was suggested to me that I should look for my birth parents, that in finding them I would unlock parts of myself that I had not yet discovered. I did not realise how true this would be until now. I was 18 I looked for, and a couple of years later found, my birth mother, and even though initially the relationship was ‘perfect’, like everything else in my life I quickly rebelled against who I was, lost who I perhaps could have become, and eventually this caused us both to move away from who we wanted each other to be, and even though this lead me to separately meet my birth father almost a year later, everything in my life to that point simply inspired me to leave New Zealand.

I got as far away from New Zealand as I could get with the resources I had, but at the same time this took me to Perth, in Western Australia, where my ex girlfriend had gone to be with her mother a year earlier when I had left her to go live with my birth mother, and I guess if I was being completely honest I was hoping we might get back together, but within 24 hours of being there everything changed when I had everything stolen, and was told by my ex that she was engaged, and pregnant to someone she had met there. All of which ultimately caused me to quickly loose contact with everyone I had known when the path I had chosen now led me on a journey that took me in, and again out, of so many other peoples lives, in a variety of situations, over many years, as I struggled to find my feet again, all over Australia.

Meanwhile back in New Zealand unbeknown to me, my birth mother has commissioned a lady to hand make a necklace from silver, the centre piece of which is a hand made silhouetted angel in an open box that hangs from the middle of the chain. She then gives this necklace to my nephew ‘to look after’ until his uncle returns to collect get it, something that happened about eleven years later, which is another story in itself. I assume that during this time the necklace became as much a part of his life, gathering more meaning as the years went by and he got older, as it was to eventually mean in mine when I was given it well over ten years later when I returned to New Zealand to re new, and in some ways complete, the journey/relationship I had started with my birth family, something that I was lucky enough to be able to do with what was in my life to date a minimum effort, and only small sacrifice, on my part.

The point I am trying to make is we all have our own journey, that this journey takes us places we do not always intend going, but it what we do when we get there that defines us and allows us to take our next step. For me I believe I need to step back, get myself back on my feet again and appreciate the last part of my journey before I start the next one.

I sit here looking at the necklace I so proudly wear around my wrist and see each link as a part of my life, and even though I am possibly the tarnished angel in the middle linking it all together, I wouldn’t want to be anyone else..

…sometimes we need to remember just how lucky we really are.

Till soon.. Stay safe.. Be You!!!

.K