Ten years ago today, I left New Zealand. I had a plan to sort of end up in the UK and do… something. I ended up spending three years in Edinburgh. Seems like it was longer.
Sitting on the plane out of NZ with my good buddy Mr TwoTrees, we talked about why we were going. In our mid-20s, we were at the top end of the OE age group. We weren’t out to party like crazy, or to find ourselves, or to earn a nest egg of sweet sweet GBP. Our motivations were harder to nail down. One strand of mine I could identify: I wanted to learn the size of the world. I wanted to get that sense of scale that only comes from experience.
By the time I landed back in Wellington, I knew the world’s size. I had also made a new lifetime home in Edinburgh, and many crucial epic wondrous friends who each pushed my life in new directions. And walking in Welington, I knew this was the right place to be, where I had to be so the next stage of my life could begin.
I didn’t do everything right, far from it. It made a hard road for my lovely Cal, left behind at the airport ten years ago, part of a scattering loop that took nearly a half-decade to reconnect. I think of the me sat on that plane and I remember how many mistakes I had made and would continue to make. That day was the beginning of a journey that would create a new version of me. Not that there was anything much wrong with the old me, but the stuff down deep was ripped out and rewired and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to undertake that process, the privileges of my heritage and my financial situation and my supportive family and more.
A decade ago, I got on a plane; travel without a tourist. Across a whole lifetime there’re probably only a few days one can point to and say, then, right then; the exact moment where I started a fresh page and wrote myself anew. This is one of mine.
morgue at large (travel email archive)
I am full of Awe.
I had considered this fall being 10 years since we met. When I get home later today, I will seek out my journal to find the moment of my meeting Leon and you.
It will be wedged in there against some rather odd and embarrassing 20-year-old thoughts I am sure of, but hey- I was 20!
I count you as one of my best friends, and look forward to (at least) another 10 years!
And how lucky it was that you ended up in Edinburgh, “that tall Kiwi guy.” How lucky we were, and how lucky I continue to be. If it wasn’t for that meeting, I would never have travelled the world the way I did, would never have gone back to uni in NZ, would never have met Jaqui. I strongly suspect you, my friend, are the catalyst for all of that.
Good times.
Malc – That’s life right there, our decisions sorting patterns out of chaos. Good times indeed.
And Aaron, blimey how did I miss this comment. I claim for us ALL the years.