How do you explain to someone who isn’t a freediver that you’ve spent the last six weeks in Bali trying to hold your breath under water? Those in the know would know that freediving is more than that. That deep under the water, if you’re not feeling great, anxious, tired, it just wont work. Your body will say no. Or your mind will. You spend a lot of the time looking at yourself. Why did I feel uncomfortable on that dive? Why did I turn? Why wasn’t I relaxed and felt that the bottom was soo far away. I spent the last six weeks looking in and not out.
So when I’ve returned home, firstly it was a shock. I was bombarded by looking out. People I hadn’t spoken to. The cold. Going back to work. Looking at everyone buying ‘things’ in the supermarket (there are no things to buy in Amed), wondering about fish (can I really eat fish anymore after all that time spent in the ocean?). At the moment I am leaning towards a no. It’s not to become some hippy wildlife warrior but it’s starting to feel wrong eating fish. I don’t feel great about it. And it is about bringing the principles of your life and the things you loved and you felt on holidays to be in your every day life. I want there to still be fish in the ocean in thirty years time.
So where to now? It is my dream to have a job that I don’t feel so stressed out and burnt out from that I need to disappear overseas ‘to recover’ each year. Maybe this job will be it? To feel that I am making a difference but not being burnt out. Seems to be going okay so far. I want to keep the yoga going, that’s why I am up so early now because I am about to head there before work. I even went for a little run yesterday! Meditation is the next thing. And on My Meow, I am being a little quiet, because I am cooking away at something big. Something else. Not on here. And I am going to launch it soon and I am excited!
I’ll still be sharing stories here.
So now I’m over the sad. I am grateful that it happened and I hold those memories close. Looking up at the stars on the night dive, walking through the streets of Ubud, eating my banana pancake every day, those sunsets and the man who would smile at me as he swept his house as I walked every morning to Apneista, the friends I made. Real friends. The type you can belly laugh with. These things are here with me, even though I am not there. So I can’t dwell that it’s over, because it’s there for me to go back to. And the experiences have left lasting imprints. But now it’s moving on to build my kick arse life.
Happy Friday,
Ashleigh XXX
