The Straw, the Choice, & the Journey

Not too long ago, while being here, I was approached by a an old Uni mate of mine that has begun to go through what I did two years ago - almost to the day.  His frustrations in life are now what mine were then.  He is not the first to ask me how did I choose to escape a comatose styled life.  It was not easy.  I failed many times over on calculated risks and disappointed some that wished for me to stay.  I remain unapologetic in my pursuits.  I remember a past relationship asked me, "So, what's the deal about Australia?"  At the time I did not know myself... Least not fully.  

But before my 32nd Birthday I can... Australia is a chance to tick some major boxes off on my bucket list, it is a challenge I have never faced before, it is adventure, it is a gut check, and it will be the start of a life I was always meant to pursue.  Why the instagram posts?  Why the Tall-Poppy Self-Promotional wanker shit all the while?  Simple.  Dreams take work.  Heaps of work.  And decisions that can truly test your heart and burn your soul.  Yet those flames of passion and ambition for something more only burn away what is no longer needed.  Know the difference between wants and needs is a key to a door very few ever even open.  

Where did I open this door and start this journey?

The Straw

Christmas time Indianapolis Indiana, USA December 2016

Thinking back to 2016 and what I had going on seems like another life.  Indiana is a place that is over 14,000km from where I am now, but what I called home for thirty plus years.  How did I leave a lucrative career as a Massage Therapist and Instructor.  I owned my own small business that had survived for over four years, and could continue to survive.  I had a really attractive girlfriend that seemed nice enough.  Her and I talked about leaving Indy, go to Ireland or South Carolina, and carving out our own small lot on this planet.  It seemed we were more on a path to marriage than anyone else I dated.  My health was good. For the last eight years, since Iraq,  I hit the gym about four to five times a week for at least an hour or two.  And debt?  Only student loans for an overpriced Associates Degree, but more than manageable to pay down.  My car was Hippie fuel efficient over Detroit muscle.  Life, or what I thought was my life, was good.  It was safe.  It was what society deemed acceptable.  It was all wrong for me.  I never asked myself what actually makes me happy.  Unbeknown to me, I was not happy with any of it - all of it.  Just working my days away.  Physically exhausting myself, depleting my emotional reserves, and spiritually completely out of balance.  But I kept stacking the work on until one minor fight collapse the world I created, and burned me to the center of my soul.

During this time I quit my stable job to hopefully make more in the private sector.  In turn, have enough money to get a place in the Carolinas - Asheville was brought up.  It was just before 2016's Christmas Eve and my thirtieth birthday it all unraveled.  That night she sat on my lap, and began to tell me everything she hated about me.  My arrogance... My condescension... My addiction to working...   In her defense, I did start that fight and nothing that she said was was entirely false.  Bedroom door slammed shut, her in my bed, and me on a two seater sofa watching Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown: Thailand.  Remembering I was there, not in Chang Mai, yet there all the same.  Earlier that very year I was there.  Happy then.  But now, I hated everyone and everything.  Depression flooded in when the anger receded.  Drink.  Work.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Drink.    Work.    Rinse.   Repeat.   That what my life has become.  That was my own created hell.  A month later, had a friend not picked up the phone, I'm not convinced I would be here today.  The suffocating wet blanket of depression was taking me down fast.  For too long I didn't accept one resounding fact.  I did hurt people that cared about me.  I placed the straw that essentially broke my own back.  But I can do something about it.

The Choice 

Sure, not everywhere is the same as Indianapolis, Indiana.  I can, however, summarize what society expects a person to do in his or her life while there in that growing city.  Finish school, get a career job, date who is around, marry in his or her early to mid twenties, have kids, have a mortgage, have debt, divorce mid to late thirties, and finally begin to figure out his or her worth and/or happiness in life.  Assuming that he or she does not develop unhealthy coping mechanisms or are drugged out of life all together.  Somewhere in between all that nonsense he or she take vacations from his or her everyday...  Buy a ticket, get to the destination, forget for a handful of days, come back to a life he or she still longs to forget.  Repeat forty plus years till that blessed day of retirement.  Most often too old, too tired, and often too bitter to enjoy any of the golden years.  It is a sad tale for many.  It is a safe comfortable automatic pilot life.  Goals that I, myself, tried in vain to pursue.  I did not have a wife, kids, or mortgage yet.  Time to go, but first I needed to figure out what makes me happy.  This requires a deep look into myself and begin to separate my BS, another person's BS, and the world's BS.

For me, I did not want to settle on a temporary vacation from the life I had chosen.  I needed my life to be the vacation.  To have, dare I say, my retirement goals to become my everyday life.   To fall in love with life.   Can that even be done?  What does that even look like?  I decided those questions are up to me to answer, and my answer is a simple yes.  Yes,  I refuse live a life I unconsciously knew I hated.  So I made many difficult and uncomfortable choices all while continuing to look deep inside myself for what fills up my life cup.  But all of it led me here to Australia.

Kho Phi Phi, Thailand, 2016

Why Australia?  My family is mostly Scot/Irish with a splash of German.  I talked a great deal about backpacking and possibly immigrating to Ireland before everything changed that cold December night.  I understand now why I needed to be isolated.  It seems it was the only way to push towards a life that was more suited for me.  I have no regrets on where I have been, what I have done, or accomplished in my past.  But this is the next chapter on how to never let my life cup drain completely out again.  In short, the secret to creating my own happiness.  The last time I was truly happy was on Long Beach in Kho Phi Phi islands in the beautiful country of Thailand, drinking SangSom and coke with my new Russian and Chinese friends, and having a Bourdain styled conversation all while the sun sat on the horizon.  Pure joy.  Pure happiness.  Pure love of all life coursed through me.  Tropical beaches and beach culture, meeting and conversing  with new foreign peoples, and adventure in trying something dangerously new.  America, for everything wonderful thing it offers, simply can't compete with a country that has over 10,600 beaches.  I can visit a different one everyday for the next thirty years, commune with both locals and fellow travelers, and yes see all manners of creatures designed to kill me.  Thailand will always hold a special place in my heart.  Ireland is still a must see.  However, all doors opened to Australia.  So I am still here in Australia.  Plans changed during the course of this journey.  But my passion for travel and adventure is unquenchable... But the details, the ones I dare to even imagine, have solidified even more.

The Journey

Average 60-70 hour work weeks, 2017

Maybe I am just going through a quarter life crisis.  A phase of sorts because  I am a bratty millennial man-child.  Like many of the same species, a man-child that simply cannot or will not commit to sitting still for forty years and fully concede to do what is the social norm - one job, a wife, kids, mortgage, and then retirement.   During the last eight months of being in the States many hurdles and road blocks specifically designed to anchor me in to staying what I was savagely trying to escape.  Tough decisions were made.  Self realization was harsh.  At times, I had to unapologetic and emotionless.  If you decide to no longer live your own version of a comatose styled life there will be many events that will try your resolve.  Choices that will need to be made... Really, these choices will leave you feeling empty.  Remember that you can refill your life with what you choose.  The people that truly do care about you will support what you are trying to accomplish.  The ones that do not often are not bad or evil... You just bring out his/her own insecurities and challenge that same person on why they are not living the best life they can.  However, adventure starts when you are least prepared.  So pack carefully when you decide to fall in love with your life.  You are not alone out there in the world to feel like you were meant for more.   You are allowed to have more, to have your dreams come true.  But you have to choose to work for it, everyday.  If you are plane ride away from beginning to live your dream, do yourself the biggest favor (it isn't easy), but get on the damn plane even if not one thing goes as planned.  Life rarely ever goes as planned.  Remember, you are not alone. 

~~~©Dustin J. Casey 2021~~~