Who is Nic?
The way I want the world to see me: A shiny, happy girl with a zest for life. She loves deep, intellectual conversations. She loves travel and seeing new places. She's all about the 'new experience'. She's a Christian girl but not a conventional one (who stays in a safe profession, in a safe little world). She has friends who are believers and those who are not. She believes in real friendships where you get to know the heart of a person instead of just keeping it at surface level.
She's a geek, with a deep, abiding love for STAR WARS. She has an amazing family and loves them to bits (even while feeling pressured to conform to their script). She's brilliant; she's the black sheep of the family. She's generally a success at anything she puts her mind to, except for craft or relationships (no one can be good at everything!) ;)
She was voted "most likely to succeed" by her graduating class, and in terms of world experience and financial goals, she probably is. It's the curse of being the first-born: the classic overachiever. She rides horses and surfs and skis and loves being outdoors. She works hard to stay fit but has a weakness for chocolate. Her favourite boys are her nephews and she has little regard for 'Hollywood' stereotypes.
A chameleon: she's comfortable in a 5-star restaurant; she sleeps happily in a backpacker's hostel. The typical trappings of financial success mean little to her; she'd much rather trek through New Zealand than have a flat-screen tv and matching silverware. She can network her way through a room of VIPs or go drinking with the boys. She knows she will go into space one day.
She's a scientist, she's a writer. She's never cared about being left of centre. Eccentric is taken as a compliment.
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And that, my friends, is why she remains single. She carries in her heart a deep longing for a confidant. She's had them before, but the world turns, people come in and out of her life and she cares for them deeply when they are there and misses them terribly when they move on.
She's been told she's 'too smart', 'too picky', 'too weird', 'too independent'. She knows she's not your typical girl next door, but that's the essence of who she IS. To pretend, to be that girl with an empty head, the one who lives out her life fulfilled with routine rather than adventure, would be to go against every dream in her mind. The tough thing to comprehend is that the women who marry, those who fit the Biblical role of 'perfect wife', the set she so desperately wants to be part of, the group she admires, is not her.
She's learning to be gracious and accept help. She's learning to admit she can't do everything on her own. (And yes, that frustrates her, the need to rely on other people.) Her heart, now rebuilt (albeit with scars), is in a protective shell and she's terrified of letting it get smashed again. She runs from pain because she knows that the world IS pain.
Part of her dreams of Heaven because she no longer believes in perfection on earth. There can be moments of beauty, moments of bliss, but inevitably, all things end.
And yet - she always believes in a brighter tomorrow - because LOOK at the universe! How amazing, how incredible, it is.
If this post sounds arrogant - I'm writing it to capture who I want to be as well as who I am. Leaving out the bad stuff.
Seasons change
There's a change in the air. Sure, the calendar says it's still summer, but autumn is approaching. I can feel it. There's always a sense of melancholy with the change - I am a summer girl through and through. To me, there's nothing better than running around wearing next to nothing and feeling the warm air on your skin. A hot breeze blowing through your hair, diving into the cool ocean, lying on a floor feeling the heat pulsating around you and feeling so ALIVE.
It makes me want to run and dance and sing. Spend hours at the beach, surfing, lying in the sun, dreaming, being. Walking at midnight with a full moon high, and no need for a jacket. Dancing barefoot through the grass.
The whole world thrums with song in summer.
But winter, winter is for curling up inside, for the night to take hold, for everything to be a little more faded and a little less sparkling. Winter is sad.
I've been having some haunting dreams, the most poignant of X. In the dream, he wrote me a letter saying that this was all silly and he wanted our friendship back. Oh, how I wish that would happen in real life. But I know that the heart is irrational and needs a long time to heal. Sometimes, it doesn't heal at all. And all we can do is acknowledge that, grieve for the lost friendship, and love from a distance.
It's strange, the last year I have learned so much about love in the sense of agape and I don't think I ever appreciated, until now, just how deep that could be. I knew familial love backwards, I had been through the rollercoaster of romantic love a few times, but the love of friendship? It's true, you don't appreciate it until you lose it and I lost it 3 times in a year. (I suspect God was trying to teach me a lesson about that: well the lesson has been received loud and clear!)
These days, I'm appreciating the friends I have, while also seeking out new people. It would be so easy to close myself off and retreat but how many amazing people would I miss?!
Canada, attempt number 2?
I'm thinking of applying for another Canadian visa. If you remember, I already had one but couldn't use it (due to getting glandular fever and ending up in Aus) and it expired. What was even sneakier was the rules changed between the time of my application and acceptance, meaning that they no longer give refunds if it's not used!
So I have to think carefully about this one: it's my last chance (on account of the whole -ARGH- turning 30 this year). Why do working holiday visas have such a young cut-off age? (Answer: because they assume people are married and have kids by this age?) As long as I enter the country by next April I should be okay.
I DO want to spend a season working in a ski resort. It would be so different to what I do now, and yeah, I'd be treated with none of the respect I currently get at work but that would be a humbling experience. Good for the soul. I find that the higher I climb in the corporate world, the more arrogant I become and I have to keep reminding myself that I'm NOT 'better' than others just because of the opportunities God has given me.
I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. He's just started medical school and said that he wouldn't trade it for marriage. Whereas me? Would I trade my 'career' and travel experiences for marriage? I do think marriage - human companionship - is more important because at the end of it all, it's the people we meet, the lives we touch, the lives that touch ours, that we remember.
And I have met some INCREDIBLE people all around the world.
21st century consumer society
I'm getting a lot of flack from my friends lately, for not spending money. They know I'm on a higher income than they are (conveniently forgetting it's a solo income). They see my empty house. They see me sleeping on an old bed, or using a plastic chair to sit at the counter. And they ask me:
Why don't you buy a new bed?
Why don't you buy a dinner table?
Why don't you go get some furniture?
The question is invariably followed with, "It's not like you can't afford it."
...how materialistic has our society become??? Sure, I can go into greater debt to purchase these household luxuries. But do I need them? In my mind, no. Posessions, 'stuff', just weighs us down. The more you have, the harder it is to let go of something.
Besides, what if I go out and buy the bedroom suite and fill up my house... what happens if I can't find work? I certainly won't be able to return the items and reselling always causes one to lose money. Even having a mortgage is so OPPOSITE to my philosophy: I've always been the person who does not believe in credit. Ever.
So I get called cheap (rather than frugal) for not fitting the 21st century mould of "Buy what you want!" I've been there, done that, and have the STAR WARS collection to show for it.
South Africa
I've been getting messages again about the Pretoria project. And the idea has me so excited. I'd resigned myself to missing out after the fiascos of late last year but it seems all hope is not lost. Perhaps God is calling me there after all, just not on the timeframe I expected.
I miss travelling. I don't think I'm ready for the responsibilities of a home; not because I can't do it, but because taking care of a (too big for me) house plus working the hours I do leaves no time for anything else. Certainly not time for meaningful relationships with people. Yes, I have wonderful friends and family whom I see a couple times a week but that is not expanding my social circle. I'm not learning new things.
Two years ago, I was travelling to Europe every 3rd weekend. It was an exhausting lifestyle, but oh, the joys. So much to see and learn about this incredible world! And because I was so busy, I was so much more efficient at squeezing everything else in. I had horse riding on Monday nights, Alpha club on Tuesdays, Bible study group on Wednesdays, and Friday > Sunday was travel. Okay, I only had a small apartment to maintain, but how did I have those levels of energy???
(However, this was pre-illness, so perhaps that's why. Even though I'm over GF, I just haven't bounced back as much as I thought I would. Is it age? Nooooooo!)
At the moment, my 'Weekend To Do' list has things on it like: Mow lawn, organise fridge, cut plastic drawer liners, lay cement. I can't help but think all of those things belong to life with a husband and children where you can share the work of setting up a new home and see it as building something together.
Or perhaps my 'rejecting my house' mindset is because I'm still upset by the random neighbour crashing the impromptu pool party I had last night. I'm not capable of turning people away but when his language grew more and more vulgar, I wish I knew how to kick someone out.
