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[theadventuresofpatandalice-blog]

A Lesson on Unrequited Love.

In the innocence of youth we had it all worked out, didn't we? Meet and marry Prince Charming in our 20's, pop out two perfect children by 30 and of course a house with a pool guarded by a golden retriever at age 35. I admire how naive we were, the beauty of innocence; I do. But I'm glad we were only dreaming. Because what fairy tales forgot to teach us is that love isn't always as easy as leaving a slipper on a staircase. I'm all for a good romance and love nothing more than watching a real life fantasy pan out, but the reality is your glass slipper can also shatter, and sometimes that happening is out of your control. Who stumbles across your slipper can make you feel like the clocks hit 12 and you've turned into a pumpkin too, as unlike the movies you can't choose who you love, and sometimes your Prince Charming turns out to be a frog in a crown or more surprisingly a woman with a tail full of scales. And what seems like the greyest ending of all, some sad times who your thought was your Prince Charming can walk straight down the stairs and not give your slipper a slight second glance. But that's okay. Because that's what real life teaches us, and we are put here to live it and learn it for ourselves. No books or movies, just you and your heart. Love can be a very overwhelming feeling in full force. It can make us perform actions so out of character that we become barely recognisable to ourselves. Especially unrequited love. It hurts learning that the person you love doesn't love you back. When the glass slipper doesn't fit we are left unmotivated, heart broken and lonely. We find ourselves scrolling through messages, profiles and memories, wondering what went wrong and if trying one more time is too much. If you've been here before then keep reading please. Because I'm here to tell you that your sob story doesn't have to end here. That I do believe in life after love and that there's hidden beauty behind unrequited love too. So pick up your own shoe honey, and keep on keeping on. Listen, loving someone who doesn't love you back is not the end of the world. It seems like it at the time, I know, but let unrequited love teach you an enlightening lesson. Know that love is possible inside of you. Yes it isn't this time or this person, but it is possible. For as long as we have the capacity to love we should find comfort in knowing that it's possible. That the pain of our pasts hasn't burnt us out completely. So please don't let one bad experience hide your heart away from unraveling future fairy tales. Love yourself enough to accept the fact that real life stories don't always have happy endings. But know that these stories only represent a mere chapter of your life. You are the author of your unfinished book. Seek comfort in the hope that another chapter may introduce your soul mate as some magnificent shoe shiner, who specialises in glass slippers too. Please try to persuade your energy from feeling sorry for yourself or obsessing over who or what was, and focus on becoming the best version of you. A you that's happy - alone. A you that the people you love deserve to be loved by. And sure you can still hope for someone to share that happiness with someday but until you're happy with you, you can't successfully share your happy ending with anybody else. What a glorious and harmless revenge living your best life is. Peace and love, PM.

[theadventuresofpatandalice-blog]

Summer love.

What is it about summer that changes us as people? Is it the way the sun kisses our brown bodies as we wipe off the sand from another lazy day at the beach? Or is it the time we have to relax and finally find ourselves through getting lost in books, documentaries, souvenir shops and campsites? Perhaps it's the friendships we form with people from all over the world that are so likeminded you feel as though you've known each other your entire lives within an instant hello. Maybe it's the hope that comes from these connections, knowing that when we finally return home as new people we'll have something so similar and familiar to hold onto. For me it's been all of this and so much more. It's been bus trips and car rides and plane flights and hikes. Kayaking through caves and road tripping through foreign countries with 30 odd other beautifully lost souls. It's been living and learning and growing inside. Hospital visits and home sick calls. Fuelling my body and feeding my mind. It's meant finding myself and finding my feet. Learning to love and learning to lean. Spending sacred time with sisters god sent down as friends. Finding there's something spectacular in the New Castle water, meaning that my beloved sister's gutsy recent relocation to Sydney will see my new friendships flourish. It's been silly mistakes and a hundred wrong buses. Drawing and dancing, making crafts and filling hearts. The highs have been fuelled not only by nature, seeing the lows come crashing one hangover at a time. Emotions have soared and a few four letter words have spilled. Support has been endless and grateful I am. All this it's been, both good bad and sad, but all of this glory I'd be mad not to have. This summer has changed me indeed that is true, for there is nothing of this summer that I would change if I knew. This summer has prepared me for what is to come. The homecoming, 30 hours of travel and what waits on the other side. My sweet mum at the airport covered in tears. My dog running laps gleaming with excitement. My family finally together again to watch my darling sister wed the man of her dreams. My best friend's new baby waiting to be dressed and caressed by crazy aunt pat. The New Years road trip to falls spent losing our voices with laughter. The opportunity to take what I have learned and spread sunshine like confetti. The chance to better myself, my situation and my career in order to set myself up to take on the world again. That is what I call summer love. And boy am I happy to be in love, with me with a person with a place, and a time. And how lucky I am to be only half way through. Back to London I go to see off my family before exploring the captivating mystery of Egypt and ticking off country number 30, continent number five from seven. Summer love ✨

[theadventuresofpatandalice-blog]

DMT for me.

A drug that your brain releases into your body after you die. A trip so powerful it changes your entire way of thinking. I never realised how capable and clever my unconscious mind was until I tried DMT. How your brain can remove memories from its forefront in order to protect you from pain. How a sudden realisation can mean that you now completely accept everything that ever happened and can be at peace with yourself and your world. But that’s exactly what happened, for me.

There I was in my van at the barn trying something I’d never heard of before, not knowing exactly what to expect, but completely aware of what I was hoping for. How could anyone foresee the build up to such an epiphany? Unlikely of course. But as I took my third trip in a row I knew that something that I’d been building up towards was about to unravel right before my eyes, and for the first time in my life I wanted it to.

The chemical reaction took my brain back five years. To a dark time in my life that I’d never been able to fully remember, and therefore could never really let go of. This time was two weeks after my dad’s sudden passing and I was hurt. But seeing myself in third person wasn’t painful at all, it was almost enlightening. As I saw what was happening my body could feel the effects as though it was happening again. As though I was lying on the floor of the toilet block again and he was there, pants down with knife in hand. I wasn’t scared this time though, I was simply there to see exactly what happened that day. And I knew in my mind that once I had viewed the scene through in its entirety, I could happily move on.

Now I’m approaching the part which I usually black out in, and I’m curious to see why. Then a sudden sensation overcomes me, and it all makes sense. As with any life threatening crisis, when you are raped your body goes into shock. You don’t know what to do. And in the memory that my brain was holding from me, perhaps out of fear of rejection or judgement, I orgasmed. So as I saw myself orgasming in the trip I orgasmed in real life, too.

Then without even knowing that it existed inside of me, I had unleashed a whole subconscious connection between orgasms and being raped. And for the first time since the ordeal I was able to enjoy the intense pleasure of an orgasm without tying the feeling to a deep dark black hole of insecurity.

Once I had come to the realisation of what had happened, what I was holding onto and what was holding me back (without me even knowing) I was instantly at peace with what had happened and had completely detached my current self from the experience.

After this happened the trip allowed me to see myself the way that other people see me. My actual self. The version of myself that I saw was so different to what I was used to seeing in the mirror that it completely altered the version of myself that I see now. The trip provided me with an intense sense of self awareness, allowing me to feel completely at peace for the first time in five years. It allowed me to unlock and relive a memory that my brain blocked out to protect me which subconsciously created a layer of fear inside of me, that tied me down for years. DMT transformed my perspective on going home to life in Australia by disassociating the experience with my present self, proving to myself that home doesn’t have to be associated with darkness or the drugs I used to overcome it with.

So feeling as though my life had been turned upside down, I fell asleep and woke the next morning to find the wrist watch which came into my possession during that hard time to finally have stopped ticking, so perfectly representing the absolute end of an era. And I’ve never looked back since.

[theadventuresofpatandalice-blog]

The Bittersweet Goodbye

This goodbye is like no other we’ve ever experienced. It’s not the gut wrenching goodbye to a person now passed, nor the final farewell to a lover once longed for. It’s the bittersweet bye to a dream we adore, but so sadly have to open our eyes from. This goodbye oozes with fear, as this time there’s no absolute. No guarantee that the inseparably deep connections our family have formed with follow us out the door. No promise that the debt from a few forgotten phone plans can’t follow us into tomorrow. No way of knowing that our now bigger and better selves won’t revert back into old habits and ways. No idea if one day we’ll become accustomed to normality and find ourselves tenuously tied to a person or place. No clue in the world if the dreams really over and if this is as good as it gets.

But when you stop and think you realise that this bumpy old roller coaster just keeps getting higher. Every now and again you get that stomach dropping free fall, but it generally seems that your peak gets higher the longer you ride. And maybe the drops gets bigger as we get older but that’s only because we’re higher than ever before and everything means more than ever.

Leaving our London dream behind feels like a free fall now, but so did so many other times we thought it couldn’t get any better. The drive home from Groovin, the graduation hat throw, the first love we thought would last forever. We think we’ve hit our peak, but little do we know.

Like a tall yellow flower delicately reopening its petals each day to face the sun, every day we rise and each time we grow. And perhaps as we grow our ideals of what constitutes a peak grow too. So for now it may be about how far from home we can roam, but tomorrow our happiness could come in having our own homes, and families to fill them with. Nothing’s for sure, that’s all I know. But if you keep your mind open, with hope in your heart, you should be excited to grow.

And for the friendships we’ve formed, like never before, those friendships should follow us out any old door. These friendships are real and these friends are forever. We’ve gone through it all, wrapped up in it too. There’s no turning back on something so true.

But if it’s home that you fear, or the memories it holds, the people you’ll see, or the chance you’ll grow old; don’t be afraid. Fly into the future knowing that you are better than when you left, and be proud of what you’ve become. And if people don’t appreciate you for that, then perhaps they aren’t the right ones.

You are you and you are great. You can do anything, there’s no fate. So we’ll pack up our boxes and be on our way, with hope in our hearts that this is as good as it’s gonna stay.

[theadventuresofpatandalice-blog]

The Rebirth

A transformation so powerful it leaves the lucky few almost completely unrecognisable. A temporary lifestyle that creates permanent change in the most inspiring manner. A leap of faith that carries one farther than dreams could ever envisage. The never to be repeated chance to rediscover one's true self. Generally, people don't pack up their lives and move half way across the big bad world for no reason. Some people are born bigger than the borders of their ragged country towns. Some find themselves wrongly cemented and long for an escape from the comfort of the oh so smothering routines they once wished for as children. Some relationships mature and leave lovers longing for the bizarre possibility of a new foreign flame. Others have holes in their hiking boots, and hope that their grief can be conquered by miles. And then, there are the runners. Lost souls avoiding their somewhat offbeat version of reality, whatever that may be. Perhaps a person. Usually a problem. And sometimes even themselves. A runner makes the perfect candidate. Running so fast from demons of their past, a runners reflection becomes blurred. Their clean slate of paper becomes crumbled and coffee stained. The rebirth acts as an iron, slowly straightening out each crease of crinkled paper, returning it to its original form. But as with any birth, one needs to be nurtured and cared for to flourish. Environment means everything. And while moving in to a barn full of strangers may seem crazy, it may also be the perfect place to rediscover yourself. No expectations. No judgement. No baggage. You stop clinging to your past and finally focus on the present. Because none of that matters here, none of that it relevant here. Your new housemates don't need to know about your history of abuse, addiction or illness. All that matters is you in this very moment. And when you realise that, your watery eyes are opened, tearing with joy, knowing that there is life beyond whatever it was that you were running from. Then all of a sudden the rebirth has made your entire past seem like fiction. You've gone from enduring the darkness to radiating light. You feel like you again. And you have the freedom to create the new you just as you desire. Because now your paper is un-crinkled and you can decorate it however you want. How lucky you are. How lucky we are, to have witnessed the miracle of the rebirth.

[theadventuresofpatandalice-blog]

The Bubble

After a while it seems as though nothing else matters, as though our dreamlike little world is all that exists. Not from lack of curiosity nor care, but from the overwhelming sense of belonging we’ve found in an almost fate like series of events. Belonging to a group of misfits who didn’t belong behind the obstructing barriers of a place once called home. A group of people who crave more in every aspect of life, who’s conversations run deeper than the blackest part of the darkest ocean, who’s relationships flourish more naturally than a field full tall yellow flowers chasing the sun. The bubble oozes with contentment. Insiders blossom like the sweetest lily, so delicately spreading each petal day by day. Simple friendships become binding security nets that create an angelic dependency like no other. And while we know inevitably our time in this fairy tail world will come to an end, for now the bubble is what so willingly consumes us, and for now, it is our home. The trouble with a bubble is that outsiders can’t quite grasp the concept of our reality. It’s so difficult to see the beauty and complexity of a blooming butterfly when you’re staring from the outside of a cocoon. Perhaps we get so completely preoccupied by said beauty that we unintentionally neglect our outside world. Innocent internal distractions transform into neglected conversations and broken relationships within what seems like the blink of an eye. Missed phone calls, forgotten milestones and delayed replies all intensify the seemingly ignorant aura that emerges from the dark side of a bubble. Are we blinded by the bubble? Or is this what we’ve been searching for all along? How can something that seems so perfectly thought out to us appear so unknowingly selfish to outsiders? Perhaps these answers lay waiting for us on the other side of home. But for now, you can embrace the beauty of the bubble or you can fight the flight of a balloon with no hand to hold.