Am I Running Away?

That was the question that entered my mind just the other day – Am I running away?

Your probably thinking what? What are you running away from?

A big hairy spider?

A looming deadline?

Writing another blog post?

Nope. None of them unfortunately. The question that, out of the blue for no reason what so ever, begged the answer was –

Am I running away from real life?

Again, you’re probably thinking… what do you mean by real life? Kerri, you are talking gibberish – again. (Fear not, I do the gibberish thing a lot, but this time I actually have a point!)

What I mean by real life is the whole career thing, finding myself another half to spend the rest of my life with, stepping into the scary world of mortgages, having a family. Basically – settling down.

Ok, yes, I am only 24, I admit that isn’t old. However, I have never ever known what to do with my life asides from travel. My mum always knew she wanted to be a nurse, and hey presto, she became a nurse. It wasn’t easy for her, but she got there. But at least she had that dream to be something.

It wasn’t till my previous relationship ended back in 2008, that the urge to travel suddenly came around. I dropped out of uni – a major decision to make – saved for a year and just flew off. A year later, I came home and had everything set –my new boyfriend, travel plans, plans for coming home and where to live. Everything was sorted.

But then that was taken away as well. And now here I am planning my travels – solo – and heading off round the world again, and still no clue what to do apart from that.

And it makes me wonder. If I do simply travel – yes it’ll be amazing – but if I come home still single, still no idea what to do with my career, still nowhere near getting onto the property ladder, let alone moving away from my parent’s home. What will I do? I’ll just be back to where I am now even closer to the big 30… a little wiser perhaps from the travel. But what will I do after?

I’m sure my parents would be thrilled if I simply tell them I plan to travel every few years and come home to scrounge and live off them! At some point I’m going to have to settle somewhere and find myself a job and save for that dreaded mortgage and be a big girl.

But am I running away from starting that now? Of course I want to travel, if that’s my only dream right now, why hold it off for another dream I might not find at home? I hoped that when I travelled Oz, I’d find my niche in life, apart from my creative artistic flare returning, I didn’t find anything. Was I hoping for too much?

For now, I know I’m not ready to get into the world of mortgages or rent, or start a family anytime soon, I know travelling is what I want to do.

But am I running away from it all? Am I running away from growing up?

Changes :)

I’ve always known life is full of surprises. Just when you think you have most of it figured out, something is dropped in the ocean and creates a whole new wave of direction.

This past few weeks has proved massively changing in the life of Kerri (thats me!). My plans that I had been set on for so long were suddenly thrown off course when my relationship ended with the curly boy. And although part of me wishes it didn’t have to end so suddenly, the other half of me is realising this is perhaps what I needed – change.

A long distance relationship was something I always knew would be hard. But I tell you this now… imagine how hard it would be and times that by 100! It has to be the most difficult thing I have ever done – send me to the other side of the world anytime (!) – and I’m certainly in no rush to do long distance again! Asides from the obvious missing one another, it made me realise something, something I didn’t like. I was changing – but not in a good way.

Not a day went by without me worrying over something. No matter how small it may have been, I would worry about it. And worse still, I could feel my insecurities growing about myself. I didn’t feel as confident about myself anymore, and the stress was killing me. I tried so hard to be positive; telling myself we’ve got this far we can keep going, thinking of our travels together, knowing it would’nt always be this difficult… but nothing would work.

So when ‘we’ were over, and I know this makes me seem insensitive, but I felt something was lifted off my shoulders. Now I could think about me, and only me. When I’m in a relationship, I always think of the other person, or us. But for once I could now be selfish. And I’ve felt more than ever that now I’m looking on things in a much more positive way. And I couldn’t love that more.

Even though my travel plans have made a complete U-turn, and I’m scared of travelling alone with my lack of confidence, I’m still pushing myself to be positive. I want to do this for me. I want to get out there and push myself to speak to fellow travellers and explore the world to the max. I need to do this. If anything, I think this is why this happened… Someone out there is telling me I need that kick up the backside to be a more positive confident girl!

Sometimes change can be a petrifying thing. Hell, I am petrified! I can’t wait to travel, and I’m so excited for everything I’m going to see/hear/taste, but there is a huge element of fear deep inside shouting at me “What the hell are you doing woman?!”

I just know that this change is all for the best. For me, and for him.

And so… my new travel plans will commence, and the change in me is already building. In a cheesy sort of way (a nice cheese… none of that parmesan crap!) , I can see myself being someone I can live with! After all, if I don’t like who I am, how do I expect someone else to like me?! So stay tuned… my blog will come back to life again… with my travel plans being explored, tickets being booked, blog concepts coming to life and this little lady finding herself once again .

Has anyone else had a sudden change in their life and found the positive side to it? I’d love to hear some stories .

“Be audacious enough to believe in the wisdom of a divine plan”

Time Flies…

When June 22^nd of this year hits us… I’ll be doing a fair bit of celebrating. First up, it’ll be my 24^th birthday… one step closer to the big 25 – eek! Secondly, I’ll be heading for Glastonbury Festival with my other half… who just so happens to live 500miles away! And also it’ll be exactly 250 days since I arrived home from my year out in Australia… yes, I did the calculations!

So, I figured it would be a good time to recollect all the happenings over the last 8 or so months, and see what the next 8 have to offer for this little Scottish girl as I plan to hit the road all over again.

Save Save Save!

I always think the fun of travelling starts even before you get on the plane.

I don’t know if this is just me, but I just LOVE saving money for travelling! It’s possibly the whole idea of the massive treats I’m gonna get at the end. I suppose in some ways it’s like a little girl saving up for the dress she wants for the big dance – for me it’s saving up for the experiences and sights I’ll catch across the world.

Bird Song

For a change this week I’ve decided to pick out some random tweets from the past week…

A tweet here which captures moments of madness, happiness and tweet there expressing a whole heap of happenings.

All in 140 characters

Bird Song

Completely forgot about Bird Song last week… I’ve been a busy busy lady these past few days… With plenty tweets to keep you all going.

Here goes *breathes*

Bird Song

My feature of my weekly update of my tweets has come around already… it feels just like yesterday I was dreading going back to work after my weekend off!

Where does the time go?

Read on to see what I got up to in the final week of January 2011 …

Snow Times :)

Yesterday I ventured out on the snowy roads of my village armed with my camera and took some lovely shots of the white stuff. It so beautiful with the clean crisp snow coating the land.

Never get bored of it

Click the image for a better view x

Let The Xmas Shopping Commence!!

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Some of us love it, some of us hate it, but by the time those doors close on Christmas Eve around tea time… or if your’e lucky – 10pm – we all have to do that inevitable trek to purchase the presents for our loved ones!

Let the stress commence!!

Let It Snow!

Well.. as we all know.. the country has been hit by it’s first (I’m imagining first of many) batches of pure wintery weather this week.

There’s that crisp chill in the air, the hills and endless fields are layered by sheets of white and kids are scurrying around with big smiles on their faces!

Winter is finally here!! And you know what… I fucking love it.