Remembrance

It's weird how things change... how in just one measly year your entire life has become what you least expected it to be. Lately I've been thinking about how different my life is now compared to last year this time. 

This was me back in October 2011:

On Monday this week I went back to do the same hike:

To you, you might not be able to see the world of change or feel it... but take a recent photo of yourself and compare it to one you took a couple of years back and I swear it's one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had. 

2011:

2013:

In my soul, I always have been and always will be a free loving surfer girl. I'll always be a free-spirit for a passion for adventure and new things. 

But back to the point.... 

This time last year things couldn't be more different to now. 

2013... I now reside back with my parents. Don't know how long that it going to last!! 

I also work at an arts gallery whereas last year I was up at the spa. 

I have travelled Europe and been to Tanzania now - whereas last year my DREAM was to just walk through Rome. Now I've done so much its incredible. 

What else? There's so much and I'm running out of time. My lunch break is nearly over. 

In September 2012 I had recently moved into a cottage with my ex boyfriend of almost three years. I'd just adopted two beautiful little kittens, India and Guru. When my relationship turned sour I fell hopelessly and irrevocably in love with someone. I truly thought he would be the love of my life... there was just one major hiccup. We couldn't be together and in his eyes we never could... because little did I know when we met and he stole my heart, he was married. 

Anyway.... since then, it has been a huge battle for me to open up my heart again. It is so hard to let people in and become vulnerable. 

That is twice... maybe three times that I have been seriously hurt in love. 

The first was a stupid internet boyfriend thing... he went to school with my cousin overseas so it's not like he could have been some forty-year-old plumber was God-Knows-Where... I knew he existed. Back in those days we'd MSN chat and email back and forth day after day for about three years. I used to believe I loved him but that changed... 

My good friend Michael was next. We're still good friends to this day but we also had a Romeo and Juliet type of story. I adored him... with my heart and soul I knew he was the one I wanted to end up with. BUT (there's always a but isn't there???), I had dated his brother in law when I was 16 years old and when my ex found out about us he freaked out. He told Michael that if he continued to see me he would be disowned as family. 

Me being me, I told Michael to choose family. As much as it hurt, I knew it was the right thing to do.  

Now, Michael has a beautiful foreign girlfriend and they are about to have a baby. 

After Michael there was Eddie. Eddie was married man. The one that has pretty much annihilated my heart and has made it pretty much the scariest thing in the world to love again. 

How do you know you love someone? 

I don't know... there are some people I should be able to say I was in love with after years of dating them.... but my heart now knows what love truly is and what I felt for those three just doesn't compare to what I've felt for anyone else. 

I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't blog about current / future boyfriends. I don't want to not be able to look back in my blogs history because I'm not ready to remember relationships I've written about. It's private anyway. So I try not to type things out that are happening in my life right now. Instead I write out the past... a journal of remembrance. I don't think before I write these things out. I just let my fingertips hit the keyboard and it pours. I don't really expect many people to read posts such as these... these are pretty personal and long... 

But if you do have a moment - define love for me. In your own words. Tell me what you think it is. Tell me about your heartbreaks and how you overcame them. My heart is battered and bruised and it really shouldn't be now. It's been a year since that heartbreak and it needs to go away now. I want to move on. 

2012:

2013: