Travel blog finale

Some people wait all their life for someone to tell them "go"

I have moved to Australia. It was very hectic initially but now I've had a couple of days to do nothing. I have been living more, doing more things, in the past 3 months than in the past 4 years. Been living in perpetual state of immediate deadlines, stuff you have to do by next week, no "or else". I call it being in war mode. Crisis mode has a connotation I don't like, it sounds passive and receptive. War mode sounds more active and that is a key aspect of the feeling. Now there's no immediate deadline and I'm just settled. You'd think it would feel like coming up for air, but it didn't. I'm hoping writing will.

I've been saying for a few days that I need to collect my thoughts. This is that. I thought I would sit at the laptop, but now I am sitting on a plastic chair outside writing on my phone. Part of that is 4 years of writing on my phone at work. Part of it is something else. There is something cybernetic going on.

The first month of relationship felt like we'd been together for a year. The first month (update: month and a half) of living in Australia has felt like a week. Time is weird.

I'm fully settled in, and got pretty much the same job as I had in Denmark. Full lateral move. Working less hours for now. I've gotten a gym membership. I’m in the green and financially stable. The move is already a net financial gain. Last couple of days has been the first time I've settled into something like a schedule. There's a cognitive backlog. I feel like I think less. I spend less time processing and more time just doing stuff. It's not bad at all, only strange. Foreign. I feel like I am less in-depth, that I don't get to the bottom of things. But that's not quite true, I just do it in real life, with the people around me, instead of in writing. I said half in jest yesterday "I should just post everything I say to you on twitter afterwards", but there is a line to be drawn somewhere with that. Have to figure out where that is.

New life, new schedule. Take time to make time.

I have been very busy and it's easy to get caught up in the excitement and forget yourself. Saw myself in the mirror a few days ago and remembered how old I am. Even with all this happening there's still not enough time.

Life is very good and I got very lucky. I made some of the luck myself, but mostly I was just ready to go when opportunity struck. Someone on twitter said recently about soddom and gomorah "if an angel comes down and leads you out of the city, get moving and don't look back". Being ready to go is a good place to be.

I left behind all my camping gear and bottled water and canned beans. There's something very "Buddhist sand mandala" about it. Prep, and then let go of your prep. Don't be attached to your canned beans. Don't be attached to the worst case scenario. Don't plan to fail. Don't sit and wait around to justify the purchase of those beans. You have to remember that winning is not using the beans, and be ready to let go of them.

I'm responsible for other people now. I have people to be responsible for and to. That changes a lot. Little room left in the day for navel gazing and philosophising, if you take that seriously. You can get some in during the day but this kind of prolonged meditation, centering, that is writing, you just don't have room for if you are moving and building a life and having ten year plans, and taking care of other people. In hindsight a lot of my internet life and writing was very indulgent. Probably necessary and therapudic, sure, but also indulgent. Things can be both. A stepping over, a stepping out. It did facilitate the readyness I spoke about before. She always says this about me. "Thank you for being so ready". It's a cliche but I don't think I was ready for a relationship until I turned thirty. I wasnt really grown up. Not ready to be responsible for other people. It would be good if you can reach that point earlier. I'm ten years late. You can read all about how I became ready if you start from the beginning of the blog.

There is something cybernetic going on. Collecting my thoughts is mediated with advanced computer technology. All of this is a meditative excersise for me, a trying to center myself and get back to baseline. Reaching for some ethereal half forgotten mental state. Maybe that is a hallucination. The weirdest thing about Australia is that it's not weird at all.