Final daze at 167,

Thursday, June 19^th

With still 3 whole days to spare, I’ve already completed a great chunk of that weekly to-do list!  I set my alarm for 2am today and watched the super exciting Australia vs. Netherlands FIFA match, so so worth how sleepy I feel today!! So exciting, a really awesome game despite the close loss! I just loved sharing a couch with two of the craziest soccer fans I’ve ever met, haha hilarious to watch them attempt to contain their anxiety while the rest of the house slept.

I had a delicious lunch with some great company and then FaceTimed my very best while sitting out in the sun for an hour (life is goood). This evening I’ll pop by my new apartment to take some measurements and get another impression of the place before I move all of my stuff in early next week! And then it’s GNO rd2 tonight! Should be so fun. Now I shall nap & then hit the playground before getting all dolled up for the night! Such a beautiful day! Tomorrow I start trial café shifts & this weekend will be hopefully more of that, and organizing for the move/packing for Byron next week (!!!!!)

Life is goooooooood.

2am, so so silly and giggly and in love with Krystie & Elle, goofiest night out! Waaaahhhhh I don’t WANA not live with themmmmm!!

Friday, June 20^th

A productive and restful day! Two separate trial work shifts, one at Soprano’s Italian café & restaurant downtown, and the second was a last minute call-in from Mango Tree at North Beach. Both went well enough, though Soprano’s doesn’t seem to need the extra workers, and Mango Tree was rather intimidating in their expectations. Regardless! Mango Tree has asked me back for a trial serving shift Sunday morning. That would just be weekend work, which would be amazing since apparently if you work anywhere Australia on Sundays, it’s time and a half (..! Yes please!). Much deserved 3 hour nap to follow this busy day, and an evening with Grey.

Saturday, June 21^st

My least favourite time of each day is around now, 4pm, when the natural light falling in through my bedroom window is still so beautiful and white and glowy, but it is getting too dark to do things like read or type without straining even just ever so slightly.  I refuse turning my big bedroom light on for as long as possible!

I woke up early this morning to review my old lessons from England, any and all that I saved from my year 9s. That paid off when I left my first tutoring student’s house an hour and a half later with half a weeks rent in my pocket. It felt so nice to be helping a student in need, an appreciative individual. And yes, it felt good to finally be earning money. My first Australian money earned :)

I spent the afternoon in the sun, solo on south beach. I guess I wasn’t alone, I had Elizabeth and I had my best guy from uni on the other end of a really wonderful conversation. It was a spontaneous, simultaneous reminder to us both that all that matters is that we are not unhappy. And things will sort themselves out. And we will land on our feet, no matter what, and so there is simply nothing to worry about, and nothing real to lose. “Everything that happens is for my best.” All you have to worry about is finding the reasons to smile. To be kind, to work hard, to stay balanced. Let the universe work herself out. Life is easy, if you let it just do it’s thing around you, remaining flexible and appreciative and prepared for the magnificent changes and rotations of this planet. “We should all be so lucky to have great people around us, and options, and daily blessings and positive attitudes.” That is all we need from sun up to sun down. And I have that. Some days I can’t believe I get to say I have that. The love of incredible people, the freedom to change my mind, the reminders that life is good; I get those every single day. Nothing can take that away from me.

I also shared the afternoon with Liz - Elizabeth Gilbert. And my goodness it felt good to get reacquainted with that old friend. This is my fourth reading, in my fourth country. Not a coincidence, but that novelty will never wear on me. It is remarkable to see the transformation of my anecdotal notes, my highlights and re-writes and inner ideas and emotions that fill those margins. The names of real people in my life that I linked to certain characters, and now another whole year later, who those people in my life have become to me… It will never cease to amaze me how a life can transform with living proof around a single text. And the paragraphs that didn’t interest me the previous 3 years, they are the ones I am so keen on now: Liz’s spiritual journey within herself, through herself, unto her better self.

I love being back here, in these pages.

An appropriately successful Bikram to follow before a nice Saturday night. This evening my empty kitchen was given the surprise center piece of colour and fragrance, and it is nice to know that the act of flower giving was not in fact something that lived inside of my head all of those months. It was a thoughtful gesture, and it was a kind reminder. Authentic Indian at JJs; a happy tummy and an early bedtime.