Embrace the middle - when the familiar becomes unfamiliar at the same time

If I was writing this five years ago, it’s about now that I would do a philosophical deep dive into how embracing change…well, changed my life. Not today. Today, I’m having an identity crisis. Kinda.

Life feels like I’m in the middle of a long, slog-of-a-hike lately. I’m still walking in the right direction, but somehow, I keep losing the track markers. I stop, backtrack and walk around, and eventually find footprints or the track hidden in the overgrowth. When I’m in the bush, losing the track doesn’t worry me too much - I’ve been here before and don’t stay ‘lost’ for too long. So, why is life so uncomfortable right now?

It started as I sat in a mihi whakatau at work (a mihi whakatau is an informal pōwhiri/welcome) as I listened to my former manager, Alex, give a speech to welcome a new member in her old team. Ironically, it was also the first day in her new role as a general manager, yet here she was filling in for the role she hasn’t held since last November. I’ve heard her speak many times before, and she always smashes it. She is the Communications Manager after all. Was. I think it finally hit me, for realsies this time.

Someday, the nomad taking refuge in pages unwritten

Change, no matter how much we fight the push and pull of circumstance, there will always be an element of resistance towards the unknown. They say it’s not the change we fear, but the speed our bodies are expected to pivot when it slaps us in the face. I’ve been through this before - every five years my life comes to a fork in the road, taking my life in unexpected trajectories.

It’s been two months since the tall fella and I bought a house - two adults who’ve become extremely comfortable in their own space (and way of doing things) moving in together is quite the adjustment. Parts of me that have come to light that really surprised me: I didn’t realise how much I liked keeping the kitchen bench clean; or cooking dinner while the fire’s roaring in the living room. I have yet to successfully light the fire without a fire starter this winter, so that job has usually fallen to the tall fella when he comes home. Oh and I’ve fully embraced my Filipino-ness and proudly wear my pink tsinelas (house slippers) that my Mum bought from the Philippines a few years ago.

How I found peace in a global pandemic

When crossing rivers, the first thought should always be, “Do I need to get my boots wet? Can I see a safer and easier way to cross?” I feel like the last two years have been one bloody long river crossing. As each of us do our best to navigate through these weird times, one thing’s for sure, we’re so far down the river that whatever awaits us on the other side, there’s no going back. The ‘new normal’ just becomes, well, normal.

There were plenty of times that the river looked calm and getting my boots wet didn’t seem so bad. I remember the days when wearing masks was a fashion accessory more than a necessity. Videos of Six60’s massive summer concerts in New Zealand beamed across the world and jaws dropped. Apart from a couple of lockdowns, my life pretty much went on as usual until the last six months.

As the Omicron community cases kept climbing at the start of the year, we could see the waters start to get murkier by the day. Even though we had watched the rest of the world experience our current reality, there was so much we as a country had to figure out on our own too. The river wasn’t only just rising, it was in flood.

Same, same but different - what's your love language?

When I told my workmates that I was going to spend a week in the South Island, one of them asked cheekily if I had anything romantic planned for Valentine’s Day. I had a giggle. I’m the only single one in our team and I guess it’s been awhile since I talked about my dating life. “Not really, probably just coffee with Katri.” We all laughed. Katri and I used to work together and both live in Whakatāne. We were doing the Routeburn Great Walk together.

How do I describe our friendship? Katri’s curious, with a refreshingly straightforward honesty. She will hit me with life questions out of the blue - out on the street, scrambling down Conical Hill or mud deep in the bush. If she’s thinking about it, you bet she will ask the question. Normally, if anyone else asked me personal questions in such open settings, I would tip toe around my answer. I guess our friendship has taught me to be more honest with myself, to have the courage to say how I really feel, which has made me a more honest communicator too.

Be the river, not the rock

My friend Tamizan is what 12-year-old me wanted to be growing up: Smart, independent, financially stable and a homeowner. She’s only in her mid-thirties and already kicking ass at adulting.

Like me, she's a cultural milkshake too - a child of Indian parents who immigrated to Canada. Tamizan was born into Western society with the traditional expectations of Asian culture. We’ve had plenty of discussions about our upbringings and how it has shaped us as women - our sometimes strained relationship with our parents as we seek out independence. A lot of that has spilled over into our dating lives.

In Frederick Travis’ book, ‘Your Brain is a River, Not a Rock,’ our brains are said to be an interface between us and the world, and will change based on our experiences throughout our lives. These shape our perspective of ourselves and the world around us.

Last year, Tamizan got sick. She was bed ridden, lethargic and in pain. The kind of sickness that even after months of tests, the doctors couldn't figure out why her body has suddenly begun to attack her body from the inside out.

What is enough, and how will you know when you have it?

Like Alice, I went down a hole recently. YouTube recommendations took me down the Stoicism rabbit hole - quite the change from my usual tarot readings, 80s ballads and the Ink Master tattoo series. What the heck, I don’t even have a tattoo! One morning I clicked on a YouTube short from the ‘Daily Stoic’, which gives you bite-sized learnings from the classics of Stoic philosophy. YouTube shorts are like short reels on Instagram - they’re quick, snappy videos that are designed to keep you scrolling for more.

‘How To Find Enough With Stoicism’ talks about a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller (author of Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five). They were at a party hosted by a billionaire, where Vonnegut teases Heller that the billionaire made more money in a week than both his books would make in his lifetime.

“But I have something that he doesn’t have,” Heller says. “I have some idea of what enough is. I have enough.”

I replayed it over and over that morning. If it was on a cassette tape, the stereo would have surely eaten it by then. “If you don’t have an idea of what is enough, the goal posts will always shift.” Those words looped around in my head all day. At night. Then again the next day.

What is enough, and how will I know when I have it? Honestly, I didn’t have an answer for that until I met up with my friend Travis recently.