Thick skin, elastic heart

"But there have to be some negatives!"

I will not hide them, and both of them actually had (/have) me quite stressed out, which is saying so much if anyone knows how easybreezy this life here has always been for me. I have not felt stressed out (not seriously, not at all) in the entirety of my 8 months living here. The first incident we’ll consider minor, since it has since cleared, but at the time it was terrifying, feeling like I was losing a sense.

I decided to wear my contacts during my first shift thinking I was being smart in avoiding the sweat-slip nosepiece of my glasses. My glasses also make quite the habit of steaming up when conditions are too hot, which I anticipated them to be. What I didn’t anticipate was my contacts doing the exact same thing. Within the first hour they were foggy and cloudy, I guessed it was the humidity and the blowing sand/dirt causing this. It was irritating and slightly alarming not being able to see properly.

Within the second hour I started to actually feel them melting. In my eyeballs. My eyeballs felt like they were being suctioned air-tight and I actually thought I could damage them if I didn’t remove my contacts. So I did, and nothing about my vision improved. That foggy, steamy appearance of the world still remained, and was painfully obvious even with my contacts out and my glasses off. I am so close to being deemed legally blind, trust me, the severe blur of no contacts/glasses is such a familiar one, but THIS looked different. And that was terrifying. It probably sounds so silly and dramatic! Fine. But being someone who already has about the most awful possible vision, and then for something to happen to make that sense even more disabling, not knowing how to fix it or reverse the damage or if those things were even possible… it was truly scary.

My vision didn’t return until two days later. I put myself through three treatments of eye wash and saline cleansers but still nothing changed. It was incredibly painful every single time I blinked (do you actually know how many times a day you blink??). It was like a permanent Orton effect filter plus a soft focus lens had been placed over my entire world! Remember this photo from two or three posts back? This is how it looked to me,

This is how my bedroom looked,

Etc., etc., you get the idea, and now I’ll quit winging about it because suddenly I woke up this morning and I took off my sleeping mask carefully at the 6am sunshine, and no word of a lie my eyes started pouring out liquid, flooding, streaming down my face I actually tried to catch it in my hands before I could make it to the bathroom sink and it was all over me. I had weepy eyes all day today and I couldn’t have been more elated about it. Eventually, with each oncoming outpour my view began to clear. (Side note: I Can See Clearly Now The Rain Has Gone is playing in my head and I don’t know how to incorporate that into this post without sounding totally lame, lol).

The second stress is not such a happy ending, at least not yet. It is much less elaborate to detail, but far more serious; it’s the first time in these 8 months living in Australia that I have actually felt in danger. I have heard about every single deadly or harmful creature on this island a dozen times (thanks to my scardy friends and fam back home, mostly thanks to my father’s Zite article forwards), but I have never actually felt threatened until today.

I noticed it yesterday once or twice just briefly in quick passing, but today every single time I approached or exited my tent, I was attacked by swoop diving birds. Relentless, bold, cheeky fucking birds (excuse my language, but you have to imagine the stress of this once-perfect living environment). You will never see them first, they will only appear when they are but centimeters from your face. One literally swooped THROUGH my hair this arvo. They fly so close you feel the gust of wind against your face, you catch a glimpse of them way up so high in the sky and then suddenly they are free falling faster than you can imagine, coming straight at you.

We tried everything, calling out, throwing rocks, waving large sticks, I even took my umbrella with me when I left to get dinner tonight and all it did was fly right into it and aim to swoop up under it with its long skinny curvy sharp beak. It chased me the entire 100 meters to the staff room. I literally ran.

I chatted with my supervisor about it and she took me to see the only other available accommodations that I could move into. I think I’d mentioned that the tents we’re all staying in now are guest tents. Since it is off-season and the resort isn’t so busy, they bump the staff up to these bungalows (which are still lower end compared to the villas we have to offer). These perfect little homey, cozy bungalows that I have already become completely attached to. So she showed me the real staff tents, the old ones that are used during high season…

You can just guess. They are horrible, run down, dingy, dirty, smelly, musky, awful tents that aren’t even zipped up completely when we approach them… so the amount of insects and critters that are bound to be living in there by now… There are no bathrooms attached, there is no running water. The electricity in the first tent we looked at wasn’t even working.

I know I am the queen of ‘doing my best and making the most,’ and if push comes to shove (and by shove I mean actual injury-inflicted bird attack), I will have no choice but to smile through that new change and that new challenge. But it will be tough to downgrade. Especially being the only one on staff stuck in that corner of the resort, alone, knowing how comfortably I used to live or could have lived or how everyone else was living! I’d learn not to compare. I’d practice the strongest forms of gratitude just for being here, and being alive, and having all of the other blessings that I do have here in my current life. I would just prefer the birds to bugger off and leave me be! I was escorted by Italy and Hong Kong back to my tent after dinner tonight, such brave, concerned boys.

To top it all off tonight, the kitchen just didn’t bother cooking their required vegetarian option for me. So I ate toast and left over steamed vegetables from two nights ago. Lolllllllll, humph. All I am here working my butt off for is food and accommodation. Room and board. And both of those things were compromised tonight :(

That is not all you are here for, Kelsey! You are here to fulfill the absolute requirements to extend this Little Aussie Life you keep speaking so highly of into it’s second year! You are here to challenge yourself, to push your boundaries, to test your limits because isn’t that the “life you chose”? You are here because it is an experience. An opportunity! You remember those two things that generally define every inner desire you express to have for this wandering life? Smarten up, toughen up, lighten up – you can do this. You can do this!

It always takes the more level-headed (bossier, badass) version of myself to snap me out of a run away rant. I am grateful that voice exists inside of me though, and because of it I know I will be okay. I’ll be perfectly fine! I can do this.