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Leaving on a Jetplane: Wishing New Zealand Farewell

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It seems right to preface this entry, if anything to apologize for my, yet again, tardiness in updating.

I wrote this entry on the flight home from New Zealand. As of now, I’ve been home for a little over two weeks. For the most part, I’m fine. I’m happy to be home, amongst friends and family, and being back in Portland fills me with glee most days.

But there are days. The days I feared in the entry below. Where all I can feel is sadness and I can’t move from my couch. Days where I question what the hell I’m doing back in the States. Wondering why my feet are now stuck to the ground and unable to run.

Telling you all I’m going to take a break from my blog is laughable, really, cause the last half a year has been nothing but me taking breaks. But I’m hoping sometime in the next two weeks to get back on a schedule. I want to ponder the future of this blog – whether to keep using it as a diary of sorts, promote my writing on here, do fan girl entries, or, most likely, all of the above – and the schedule I’d like to stick to.

So expect more in the future.

But for now, here it is, at long last, my final New Zealand entry.

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Right now I am sitting in seat 53A of an airplane, situated in a window seat and staring out at the beautiful blood orange sunset while listening to “Suddenly Seymour” for my seventh time in a row. I am ignoring the two giggly girls to my right and less successfully ignoring the popping in my ears from the altitude. I am wearing a tank top because whenever I put my jacket on it becomes 100 degrees to my skin. I am wondering why they have not brought us food yet, as I am starving. I am pondering what Rick Moranis is doing with his life. I am ten hours away from home.

This is it. The denial of my departure is dead and gone. I’m no longer in New Zealand. I’m not even in Australia. I’m flying over an ocean that’s black as the evening sky, resisting the urge to stand up in the airplane aisle and scream at all of the flight attendants: “I MADE A MISTAKE. I SHOULD NOT BE HERE. WE HAVE TO GO BACK.”

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Sunday: Wrapping Up My Travels

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All right, ladies and gents, dogs and frogs and bears and chickens and whatnots, this entry’s dedicated to covering the last month and a half of my travels. I take off in less than two days now, so being short on time means I gotta cover a lot more than I’d normally take on in an entry.

(Random sidenote: I may or may not have stayed up till 6:30am last night with James Whitehead watching old school Sesame Street clips and behind-the-scenes Muppet stuff, as well as The Great Muppet Caper and Little Shop of Horrors twice (once without commentary and once with). Please assume the jealousy stance to your leisure.)

All right. Forty-two hours left in the country. No time to waste. We have a lot to cover, so let’s get crack-a-lackin’.

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Wednesday: Taking the Fire Back.

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This entry has been a long time coming. That’s the most I can say on the matter before I delve into the entirety of it.

I’ve had a poem stuck in my head having to do with all this. Lots of songs as well, but mainly a poem. One I wrote back when I was nineteen. It’s called “You Can’t Stop a Heart From Wanting What a Heart Wants” and it goes:

My heart can never stay still
for any longer than three breaths.
One,
two,
three.
I’m gone.

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Sunday: Future.

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Sometimes I feel like I know exactly what I’m doing with my life. I know what I want to do for a job, I know the type of people I want to surround myself with, and I know what makes me happy.

But sometimes life chucks curve balls at us. I thought I had my New Zealand plans down pat: travel with Kathleen, do some long term WWOOFing, and do a lot of camping. Cheryl often says that New Zealand likes to laugh at plans. We might have one thing in mind, and then an entirely different thing will occur. If someone had told me that, come three and a half months into my trip, I’d be living in Wellington in an apartment with a girl I met in Queenstown, working a door-to-door sales job for an animal charity, and on the potential, fingers-crossed verge of my first relationship in four years… well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have believed you. That’s life though. We can never fight those curve balls. Our unpreparedness is not going to save us from getting pelted.

So let’s embrace the changes, because sometimes they lead us down a whole other world of delicious possibilities.

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Monday: Working for the Weekend.

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Gonna keep this entry short, simple, and to the point. I’m being lured by the siren song of my bed, and nothing sounds sweeter right now than a good ol’ fashioned full night’s rest. Mmmm, gotta love those seven to eight hours of unadulterated zzzzzz’s.

First and foremost, no, I am not dead. Despite the lack of writing that’s gone on here, I am pretty damn alive. Just been distracted as of late by the new job. I work Monday through Saturday, and considering I’m not home until ten o’clock most nights the last thing I feel like doing is sitting down and typing up a blog entry at the end of my day.

Basically my excuse is that I’m lazy – but what else is new?

Some actual proof that I am very much alive – and being social! Crazy!

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Monday: I’ve Heard the Word Before.

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There’s something to be said about home life.

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I find it hard to describe the simple happiness that comes along with having a home. A home of your own, that is. A home that you’re happy in. A home where you actually want to be. A home in a location that fits. A home that feels like a home.

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Monday: The Hunt Begins.

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Well, it looks like this blog might be slowing down a bit, at least in terms of recounting my tales of trekking around New Zealand to you all (though I am well aware I still owe an entry about Hobbiton – soon! I promise!). While these last two and a half months have been fabulous, I’ve hit a roadblock of sorts.

The roadblock? Money.

While I like to think I’ve been doing a decent job saving money – and I do think that I have – Kathleen and I did *ahem* a fair amount of pricey things together during our travels. Skydiving in Taupo, Hobbiton in Matamata, Lord of the Rings tours in both Queenstown and Wellington, not to mention some pricey purchases at Weta Cave. All of these things were fabulous and I’m so glad to have done them, but they did cost a pretty penny. I’m not completely broke just yet, but it’s getting to the point where making money should probably be something I start doing soon.

Which is precisely what this entry is about! How it’s time to be an adult in New Zealand and start hunting for both work and a place to live.

Yeah, cause y’know, I’m totally an adult, no questions asked.

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Monday: More Lord of the Rings (and some Gregory Crewdson) Fangasming.

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Today I’m coming at you from the beautiful city of Nelson (adios north island, and hello south!), which we arrived in about six hours ago. We’ve yet to explore, but we’re already having a great time here with our WWOOF Hosts. More on that in a bit.

This post is going to be another excuse for me to fan girl about a couple things. It’ll be very similar to my Weta Cave entry two weeks ago. It’s going to be made up of a ton of pictures – just fair warning – lots of which are going to look a little something like this:

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If you thought I couldn’t get any nerdier before, you were obviously wrong.

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Friday: Touching Umbridge’s Butt.

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Well hello! Long time no blog entry!

Sorry that I fell a bit off the band wagon this week (and by that I mean I missed two entries). I wish I could say it’s been a hectic week and that’s why I missed blogging on schedule, but it really had more to do with the fact that I was completely WiFi-less earlier this week. Anyway, let me now regale you with tales of WWOOFing and our time back in Wellington.

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Me with some fine New Zealand cuisine. Delicious!

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Fan Girl Friday: Weta Cave at Last.

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It was only a matter of time before I had an entry on here (majorly) devoted to the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films. Honestly, I’m surprised it hasn’t come sooner.

You want me to go on an adventure with you? Where do I sign??

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