A Check in with Zack

I’d like to mention that I know there are typos. I am writing this in one fell swoop. No editing. What ever comes to goes out and I type fast so there will definitely be typos. I don’t even realize them til I read through later and I’m missing entire words that bring a sentence together.. oh well. You can figure it out.

I’m having a lemonade in a window seat at a little cafe near a Lavendar farm in Wanaka. I just walked the grounds for about an hour.. of course you have fields of lavendar, but you also have farm animals, herb gardens, honey bees, and a wide variety of plants. My favorite were these massive sunflowers. I think the brightest purple of the lavendar have already passed us but there is no doubt it is still very beautiful to walk through and the smell… it is pretty dreamy. My first whiff today brought along a nostalgic feel to it.. it was something from my childhood but I couldn’t put my finger in it.. it was a pleasant feeling I could tell though.

I still have more to up date on my last week but I had a couple big thinking days the past couple days and I wanted to get them down. What better place to do it than a lovely lavendar farm.

I think my travels caught up to me and my body is a little worn out.. maybe my brain too. I’ve been on quite the high since I’ve been here.. pretty overstimulated. I had a chance to slow down yesterday morning. It rained all night the day before and I woke up with a nice drizzle on the tin roof of my bus. Pretty drowsy. Walked into Al’s house to see what our tasks would be for the day. Since it was raining he sent me to the little garden outside with a covering.. he was growing several different things in there and he’s getting ready to take some of these large zucchini to a farming festival or something. My job was to search and destroy every weed or anything that wasn’t supposed to be there.. out of there. I guess I spent around 3+ hours in there.

I turned on my phone and played the adventure time playlist that I’ve been adding to(I’ve never really done playlists) I see it to the side and got to work. The rain is still hitting the plastic of this “green house” it’s peaceful… I’m digging out everything with my hands.. no gloves. My fingernails are pretty gnarly right now.

Sometime that morning I couldn’t stay present… I was getting lost in the past and then springing forward and getting lost in the uncertainty of the future. It was setting in on how far away I was in the world from everything I’ve known. I didn’t have emails to check.. I didn’t have to be on standby for a call or message.. I was just a 29yo picking weeds in the middle of nowhere.

I looked back on a lot of good times.. a lot of what could have been. A lot of the mistakes I had made.. beating myself up over things… then I’ve taught myself to quickly transition that to “well look how far you’ve come?” And then it goes to yea who gives af.. it’s life.. nobody’s perfect.. and I reassure myself that I know who I truly am.. I am imperfect and I try to do good.. and that I will figure it out.

My heart does hurt during little “head” sessions like those… for many different reasons.. I do get sad. I sit with them for a second… minutes… but not as long as I used to. I am better about accepting and feeling them.. then moving on. But I can’t control my dreams.. and the thoughts remain and live forever in my dreams.. Dreams have made zero progress in the past 6 months.. they have probably only gotten worse. There are times where I haven’t wanted to go to sleep because I know what awaits me… but that does no good either.. staying up to avoid.. so I guess I just face it now and let it beat me up all night.. but I also wake up on the other side.. I don’t let it control my emotions the next morning anymore. But it does suck.

In the garden.. I thought a lot  about what I wanted to do in life… where I wanted to be.. I was sad about leaving Atlanta.. but in my heart I know that leaving Atlanta is what is best for me.

The other workawayer with me at Al’s place is from Scotland and she is interviewing for a civil engineer job in town right now. Her parents have no clue that if she lands the job that she will live here permanently. She’ll get the job.

This trip is alllll about change. Embracing the change. Switching it most of it up in my life is necessary. Of course there are things about Zack that I won’t change. I’m not going to list them… but there are things about me that I know I have to change. I’m not listing them right now either. Stresses me out just typing them. I’m at a very interesting point in my life. This trip is going to prove to be extremely pivotal in my life. If I came home tomorrow.. I would already look back on this trip as having one of the biggest impacts on my life ever. But I’m just beginning.

Love y’all.