Distance

I always knew I was going to travel.

I can remember sitting in my tiny class room at school and dreaming of all the different places in the world that I would explore. Then, even before the ink on my final High School exams had time to dry, I packed my suitcase and was on a plane to America to take on a job as a ski lift operator, even though I had only seen snow once in my entire life. Over the next few years, my adventures took me to England, Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland before I finally came back to The States as an Au Pair and then settled down to begin a new life in New York.

Over the years I have become an expert at packing my whole life into a 50lb bag, but there is always something missing: My Family.

It is crazy how the world can feel so small and unfathomably large at the same time. It is hard to accept that my old life back at home in South Africa doesn't just "pause" every time I leave and life will just carry on. Friends will have babies that you won't get to meet, family members will get married without you being able to attend the wedding and worst of all you may loose those closest to you without being able to be there to deal with it or to offer support.

I am forever thankful to my parents for allowing me the opportunity to travel and go out on my own, to grow as an individual and learn from all the different cultures I have come across. I couldn't have been easy for them to let me go off on my own at only 18 years old, and especially not easy when I decided that I was going to live overseas forever.