I didn't want to leave the last post lingering there like that. It has no reflection on how I feel most of the time. Right now I'm floating on clouds. When I wrote that, I was waiting for medication to kick in after five days of missing them and dealing with the associated withdrawals. I had been crying at the drop of a hat, spent a day in bed, yelled at Tom for being perfectly lovely on more than one occasion and entirely lost perspective. I knew that I needed my medication, but I continued to skip it because a couple of days without and I'd entirely forgotten the last time I felt joyful. I'm my own worst enemy in withdrawal. I actually didn't hit publish on that post until I was back to feeling myself, but something made me feel like I should actually put it out there rather than delete yet another ill-advised draft. My anxiety has become such a strong influence in my life that it feels just plain silly to hide it in shame. It is what it is. Most days I feel in control, but every now and then it rears it's ugly head and leaves me feeling impotent. I don't need to pretend otherwise; I'm proud of how far I've come. It was only a couple of years ago that I could barely leave the house because the fear was just so overwhelming.

As always in the last million months, my reasoning behind the lateness of this follow-up is that we're still sharing my computer since that incident wherein I stupidly threw a bottle of vodka into Tom's bag not realising that his computer was inside just waiting to be smashed. In this past week, Tom has been writing the application and then preparing for the interview that he had this morning. I don't want to jinx anything, but it somehow feels like this is the job. We'll find out really soon, so fingers crossed.

I spent two blissful days wandering and writing and at my own pace. In the mornings, I walked the dog in the Botanic Gardens. We sat at the cafe and watched the gondolas and Mr Biggles attracted the attention of many adoring strangers. I wrote, for the first time in far too long, simply for the sake of putting words to paper. I wandered up Swan Street and ate a delicious fish taco at Fonda. I spent a long while immersing myself in the beautiful art at the NGV. I sat a table in Degraves sipping delicious coffee, listening to a great busker and reading The Happiness Project. I caught up with an old boyfriend and met his lovely new lady. Returning to Adelaide, I felt so refreshed and inspired, so lucky for the flexibility in my life that allows brief escapes like this.

our perfect little road trip

Our little trip to Melbourne and back was a very last minute decision, but so timely. We had planned a longer road trip for this time, but Tom's new retail job put a spanner in those works and it looked like that plan was off entirely. It was so exciting when we realised that we could fit in an abbreviated version of that break. 

This trip proved to be a break that we needed more than we even knew. The distance we travelled distanced us also from the burdens and stresses of the day-to-day and brought us some perspective that we could bring back home. We were able to live fully and completely in the moment and it was a glorious reminder of the importance of time spent together, of time out, of time to just be. 

We sang to bad nineties songs and classic hip hop and bickered over lyrics (I still maintain that the words to TLC's Unpretty sound more like "but at the end of the day I have no self esteem 'cos I'm so stupid"). We stopped to look at silly things on the side of the road and I took a thousand unnecessary photos of Tom's hands as he drove. 

 

We managed to stop in a lot of different little towns along the way. On Christmas day we had a little picnic lunch in Tailem Bend and then continued through to Naracoorte where we spent the night in Tom's sister's house. We drank beers outside and watched the sun set and dreamed together about the house we will one day have and the black subway tiles I am desperate to install in the imaginary kitchen. 

We managed to stop in a lot of different little towns along the way. On Christmas day we had a little picnic lunch in Tailem Bend and then continued through to Naracoorte where we spent the night in Tom's sister's house. We drank beers outside and watched the sun set and dreamed together about the house we will one day have and the black subway tiles I am desperate to install in the imaginary kitchen. 

 

The sun was setting as we left for the last leg to Melbourne. It was something of a miracle that we made it to South Yarra, what with my poor navigational instructions, Tom's entire lack of an internal sense of direction and the fact that the gps and both of our phones were flat as we made it into the city.

We walked through Gosch's Paddock (which is not a paddock, so you shouldn't mislead me to believe there might be sheep grazing outside Olympic Stadium, Melbourne!) to Swan Street and had a beer at the Corner Hotel. 

I rose early the next morning, made myself a coffee and brought it along for a long meandering stroll through the Botanic Gardens. A lot of people were running around the Tan, but I was quite happy to take my time, sip my coffee, and stop to read about interesting plants I came across. Under those beautiful tall trees I felt so small and at the same time so connected with the world around me. I took a lot longer than I had anticipated; it was blissfully quiet and peaceful and I took some time to reflect on the year I'd had and the one to come as I explored. 

Upon my return, Tom and I walked to Swan again to have a coffee (dad has a great machine but we like to sit and watch people sometimes) and pick up a couple of ingredients for breakfast. Tom made the most delectable scrambled eggs with baby spinach, bacon, and slow-cooked tomato. I felt torn momentarily between a desire to fit as much as possible into our only full day in the city and a wish to maintain the relaxed feel of the previous two days of the trip. We opted to take our time and just bask in the lack of responsibility and the change of scenery. It was the best thing we could have done.

We walked to Chapel Street, cursed the after-Christmas sales for filling the street with teenage girls with a thousand colourful shopping bags hanging off their arms and settled into a nice pub for lunch and wine. We met a couple of nice guys who told us brilliant stories about partying in London and Berlin in the eighties and how the clubbing scene changed in the aftermath of the Wall coming down. After a few beers we were lazy and just took the tram to meet Tom's old school friend, Cushing, at Richmond Station. They saw De La Soul that night in St Kilda and I wandered back into the Gardens to see Gravity at the Moonlight Cinema. 

On our way home I insisted on spending some time in nature, so we went through Creswick again and found a forest to explore. An inexplicable wave of something rather like sadness overcame me in this beautiful place, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. What was that feeling? It was terrible and it was blissful all at once and I felt as though I might be rooted to that spot, lost in that moment, for all the remaining days of my life. And then, in a flash, it was gone and I was with my love and we were ready, so ready, for whatever the coming year might throw at us. This trip had cleansed us and readied us and we are so excited and determined and the rest of our trip home is punctuated with discussions and plans for the future, for this year and the many years to come.