Un[Fam(i)liar]

Woot woot.. have no fear, a new blog is here.

This one much more laid back than the past few as my days have been filled with job applications, investigating visas, course work, and still reading about consciousness. Officially completed my online course about Understanding Dementia today so feeling much success. Felt like I put in a solid job app the other day and got more info about two volunteer opportunities so in the development and growth department I’m feeling pretty good. One reason why I’m using this blog more of a laid back, creative space in terms of filling up my buckets.

Who would have ever thought that I’d have a laid back approach right? Just doesn’t sound like me. Most high strung, serious person ever.

Just writing those sentences make me laugh. I laugh at myself probably more than I should because I’m probably not really that funny. I just constantly find myself thinking up potential responses to messages and die laughing about them before I even send them. Most of the time, I’m not even sure if people realise I’m joking or not which tends to make it even funnier these days.

Leads nicely into the topic that I wanted to write about.

Finding yourself in places unknown.

I’d like to think of myself of a person with a good sense of self awareness, knowing what I enjoy and don’t enjoy, knowing who I am and what I want to be, but whenever I find myself in unfamiliar territory it causes a funny reaction.

Who I was when I first moved to New Zealand is much different than who I am now in terms of understanding myself. When I moved to NZ, I was fresh out of university, just left my best friends of the past four years, identified myself pretty much solely as only a collegiate athlete, and didn’t really know what else I enjoyed outside of volleyball.

Graduating university and leaving your friends is hard enough, but I decided I’d move completely different time zones on the other side of the world and try to keep in contact that way. Not the most successful in my first year, I must admit.

I’d been living with my best friend for four years (three years in the same room), basically had a second family of teammates whom I spent more time with than anyone else on this planet by far for the four years, studied, didn’t have to worry about bills really, mug nights on Wednesdays, Corona night Thursdays, cookout milkshakes at midnight, Sunday Funday, I mean basically living in luxury (for a college student at least).

Fast forward to NZ, five roommates living with the only four people I knew in all of NZ. Out of those four people, only one who really knew everything about me as it was my sister. Talk about the beginning of an identity crisis.

For the past say at least 8-10 years, I had been known for my athletic accomplishments. Coming from a small country town, everyone knew you, everyone knew everything about you, anywhere you went you ran into people you knew whether you liked it or not, practically hard to have any privacy in that place as everyone knows everybody. (Shout out to y’all back home still surviving the crazy place.. don’t worry it is still home and I still love yall). Went to college, Division I athlete, strong athletic community, free travel, meals, lifting plans, a ton of exhausting but great structure to your life.

NZ. No one had a clue who I was, where I was from, what I had done. For me, my identity was around being a well known athlete. That is what I was good at, that is what I had been doing and practicing for all these years, so now what. Nobody knew me and honestly they didn’t really care.

You learn that when you meet new people, majority don’t really care about where you are from and what you have done. What matters to them is how you are going to benefit and impact their life. Very few will get close enough to you to dive in deeper wanting to understand what has made you the way that you are. Kudos to you people, yall rock!

For me this often caused an internal battle. I’m curious. I want to know. I want to know who you were before I met you and where you want to go. I want to know what you enjoy, like, don’t like, and why. Trying to gain understanding of the people that I surround myself with. It can be difficult because some people may not care to tell you about their past for a variety of reasons or they do not value it which is why they do not ask you about yourself. These things are totally fine as people are all different so our values and what we think is important is going to vary. Doesn’t mean one is right or wrong, just means we have different personalities and seek different information.

It has taken me quite some years to really understand this and talk myself through it because I use to often feel as if I wasn’t being valued, people didn’t appreciate the friendships like I did, or gave a sense that maybe I was misreading the entire situation. Made me doubt myself and question my perception. A lot of negative thoughts that didn’t need to happen because I was reflecting my values and what I deem important onto them and since funnily enough my thinking isn’t the same as everyone else’s then it just wasn’t right.

I definitely found myself and have created a more circular identity for myself these days, but it is important to constantly check in on yourself. When I first moved to Australia, this time I only knew one person, but I felt much more comfortable in the situation because I knew myself.

I still have days where I question things because unless you meet other people that are heading down a similar journey as you then it may be difficult to relate. Are you from the area, have you travelled, what kind of hobbies do you have, what do you enjoy, how do you communicate? What brings people together is having something in common, having similarities, so when you feel that those connections are not strong enough it leaves you in the grey area.

Do you continue to pursue these relationships? Does it feel one sided? How do you see them benefiting your life? Sometimes things take time to grow and develop. Others you may hit it off with right away. I guess one of my greatest lessons have been to know myself and rely on that. The more I know myself, the more I understand my thinking, the less I will rely on others, and the less I will question them because I understand that my perspective of the same event may differ from theirs.

The other important lesson would have to be ensuring that you are building and keeping in contact with the people that already exist in your life and mean a lot to you. My friends could text me one sentence, out of the blue, that doesn’t make any sense, and it puts the biggest smile on my face. It is the sense of knowing that you have people out there thinking about you, that do understand you, and probably think similarly to you.

A sense of community and belonging. A sense that no matter where in the world you end up, you always have each other. I send some random stuff to my friends and we take the piss out of each other and it’s the greatest thing of all. Surrounding yourself with people who benefit you and help you grow. Friends are literally the greatest thing you could ask for because you know they are there for you because they chose to be not because they have to be.

My life feels rich, but that’s because of the people in it not because of who I am. Reach out to your loved ones, call your siblings, send your friends whatever the heck you want to because they know it’s you. People need each other and often it is because of other people that allows me to discover who I am.

Next time you feel like you are in a place unknown just remember yourself. Remember that your thinking is different than theirs so when you are doubting, there is probably nothing to doubt; it is just your reaction to something that is unfamiliar.

Be yourself, love yourself, but continue to discover yourself as we are always constantly changing.

Be the familiar in something unfamiliar.