There is a time where everything must end.

Hello to everyone who has followed me in my written journey over the past year and 3 months or so.

I have been back in South Africa (as you all might or might not know and indeed as you might or might not care) for 42 days. I have not written here for 57 days. To be honest I have not been able to figure out what I could write to complete the documenting of what has been quite an amazing year. Writing about my travel following the completion of my contract would become very long winded (leaving you with so much reading that you probably would give up before being even half way through). I had the idea of getting some of my pictures up for you to take a casual gander at. That proved to be a little difficult with my arrival to limited bandwidth and comparatively prehistoric upload speeds that we have in this country. I had begun to do a post summarizing my time in Korea but then that was a little self indulgent – if you are reading this post then you are more likely to have read about those experiences in previous posts.

What I have decided to do below is write about the most telling thing that I have learnt while I have been away from friends, family and familiarity. This is introspective but it is something that I want to share with anyone willing to read on. I preface what you read below with this: this is my personal opinion and is in no way a statement towards anyone.

In the past 14 months I have: Jumped off a bridge, soared in the clouds, swum with tropical fish, witnessed the beauty evident in cherry blossoms, experienced the thrill of touch, taste, sound, smell and sight. Amongst all this and a great deal more I have learned that there are 2 things that are absolute in life – Family and Love. Everything else is circumstantial and erodes or morphs over time (depending on how you prefer to think about it). Regardless of how you think about all things erosion can take place though. This occurs if you hold on to what you had so tightly and for so long that your grip on that thing’s reality becomes skewed. This in turn can cause its place in your mind, in your heart, to become just a little bit hard and void of feeling. You have damaged what you once dearly coveted because you were unwilling to accept that change is inevitable.

 
This is something I have learned and more importantly, learned to accept. The application of what I have learned I have had to apply to my relationships in life.

Family will never leave you. You might get disappointed, sad or angry with them at times but your family will never stop being there for you, with you. Families are love with no boundaries and no clauses.  Cherish, respect and at the very least honour your family as best as you know how.

Your family’s love is unconditional. When you choose to love, you should do so with all your heart but when it is time to let go, you should not hold on too tightly but rather accept that situations change, relationships evolve and you should be willing to evolve with those relationships. Should you accept and evolve you will save yourself a great deal of anguish.

I know I am guilty of holding on too tightly and not accepting change.  This journey of self discovery has helped me evolve, to be comfortable in and of myself. It has helped me to accept that some things may stay the same but most things are dynamic. To all who have enriched my journey and to all who have enriched my life you will always be in my heart.

I have described to you all how much I have learned and grown for this experience and  I now strive to be more flexible, and fluid. That said I will never allow my heart to harden because that is not who I am. You all will always have a place in my heart, no matter what the direction or the nature of our relationship, may take.

Signing off for the final time from my Asian Adventure, thank you all so much for following my adventures. May we soon become reacquainted in an all new life changing experience!