Over the past three months I have visited fifteen towns, cities and villages. I have shared a home with a multitude of family and friends - old and young (stayed with eighteen families and individuals). It's been one hell of a journey to say the least. When I left NZ I thought the hardest part about this year would be the inevitably saddening pangs of loneliness I'd feel when missing those closest to my heart back in Wellington - my family and Jess. And of course it's hard, so, so hard being away from the people I love most on this planet. But as I said, that was inevitable. What I never factored into this trip was the emotional toil and exhaustion I would feel as a result of the ever frequent changing of company, home and town.
I've spent the past week at Soul Survivor, a christian youth camp in the Somerset countryside with eight-thousand other young people and during the week one thing in particular stuck with me. Mike Pilavachi spoke of the book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, and how the subject of 'realness' is touched on in this (seemingly profound?!) children's book.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
Realness is something that happens to you. I've laughed and cried on this adventure too many times to keep tally of. And despite the tears I've shed and pain I've felt at leaving the people I have grown to know and love so dearly over the past three months, I feel incredibly grateful. I feel grateful for both the height of joy and depth of sorrow I've felt. And I feel grateful because I feel alive. I feel real.
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
I feel like my life is starting to take off and I'm beginning to haphazardly forge my own path in this precious life I've been given. And it's you - the people who have shared this journey with me that have made this season of my life so special, so important and so valued. It is you who boiled eggs for me, slipped me twenty quid when you knew I was short, giggled over red wine or champagne with me, prayed with me, taken me for long, ambling walks through the sleepy English countryside, chanted along to 'I Predict A Riot' among a crowd of 85,000 with me, dived under rolling waves in the grey Atlantic ocean with me, kicked a ball around with me, let me have the first shower, sat in a field and talked with me about life, faith and the mystery of the two, comforted me when I felt fragile - it is you who have touched my heart and left your mark on my somewhat irrelevant life. Whether you've known me since the day I was born or I met you last week, I thank God for each and every one of you.
As I try to articulate the mess of my mind I know one thing for certain. This trip has taught me that deep human relationships are the greatest gift on this topsy turvy planet. My heart is now invested so many places that I don't know how I will ever manage to settle in just one.
I'm no good at goodbyes, I despise them, their fleeting and frequent nature, their inevitability and their inability to ever reflect the significance of the time spent with that person/those people. I'm not good at goodbyes. I'm more eloquent in writing than I am in person, so this is my written goodbye to you all, every person who I have spent time with over the past three months. It truly breaks my heart that the future is so ambiguous and I don't know when I'll see you again. But I hope and pray that our paths will cross again, soon. I really do.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
