Monday, December 31, 2012

Live My Life

Though I have taken quite a break from writing over the last couple months life has continued on.  I am a functioning member of the Fox Glacier Guiding team and as we enter into 2013 I've been thinking a lot about the year past.  It has been an amazing year for me traveling over the southern hemisphere and living on impulse more than ever before.  I loved ever second of it all starting with the turtles, sharks and seagrass.  Then south to see Kangaroo and  to buy my didgeridoo.  Next I moved east to Tasmania spending time exploring the land with Adriana and building foundations with Ninedot construction.  Then after a few days from Melbourne to Bondi Beach, Sydney,  It was time to hop across the ditch to New Zealand.

My introduction to vineyard work at Antill Estate was to perfect a way to begin this leg of the journey.  Hitch-hiking around opened my eyes to the overwhelming good-will of the kiwis and to a simpler way of life.  Across the South Island I witnessed some of the most unique and engaging places I have ever seen an din the end could not bare to part with the land.  A month in NZ and I had been hooked.  After a sad farewell to Adriana following 4 months of travel together I set a course to find work and extend my Visa.  It was again Antill Estate and some of the nicest kiwis you could ever meet who found me a job and home.  These folks who had been no more than strangers a month ago were now like an adoptive family of sorts helping me to square away all my loose ends.  It was them who suggested working on a ski mountain for the winter, and them again who told me of Mt. Cheeseman.  After 3 months on vineyard labor I was ready to try something new and being the Ski Technician at little Mt. Cheeseman was the perfect chance.  Over the winter up the mountain I met some amazing people and most of whom I hope to never lose contact with.  Some of whom suggested that i apply for a glacier guiding job.  On the last day, when the applications were due I finally got down to business and sent in the application not knowing what to expect. After a few recommendations and an interview later I had agreed to the guide job for a term of 6 months.  It was a significant move from casual ski tech to full time glacier guide and it was a move that filled me with a fair amount of doubt. However, it was a relatively short time before I was a contributing member of the team and now, 3 months into it, I feel very much as though I belong.

I have felt every emotion imaginable over this last year in an array of intensity.  I have missed home immensely in one moment and completely engrossed in my surroundings the next.  I have made friends and met people of all backgrounds, of all dispositions. I have spent hours under the water in Australia and plummeted from the sky in New Zealand.  There are so many things I have done for the first time and entirely more that I have missed out on.

You can say that I have been running away from something, You can say that I am selfish in the experience that I take, You can accuse me of leaving those I love to seek out something fresh but there is one thing that no person can say to me about this last year.  You can never tell me that I did not live life to its fullest.

My sincerest goodbye to the year 2012 and all of the experiences it gave me.  Now I welcome 2013 and though I worry as always about what is to come, my arms are outstretched to embrace the potential thats this new year brings.