How sad.
Zeme and I have parted ways.
I loved 100%
I gave a 100%
So what happened I hear you ask?
I still love him.
I honestly thought he was my ‘one’.
But sometimes no matter how you feel about some-one or
something there are some things out of your control that happen that change the
course of your future. Not just in
relationships, but work, friends, travel it can be anything. I have said before that some details are not
for the blog and the reasons behind the split will remain between Zeme and I.
But you need to keep people in your life that truly love
you, motivate you, encourage you, inspire you, enchance you and make you
happy. If you have people who have NONE
of the above. Let them go. I had to let Zeme go and it is such a shame
when we were so close to starting our life together with my return to Addis in
early January.
So the question people have been asking me is what
now?
What are your plans?
What will you do now?
Well now that I am back in control of my own destiny
(which feels fantastic) I am going to stick to my original plan and still head
to Ethiopia in January. I was always
heading back to Africa well before I met Zeme.
I may have not chosen Ethiopia as my country of choice, but after being
there several times now, I love it there.
I feel I can make a real difference, the people are friendly and I think
I can still make a life for myself there.
It will just be a bigger challenge not having ‘a loved one’ there to
help me adapt. I am terrified
actually. It is a country where not many
people speak English but I have been in touch with my guide from my first trip,
Minalu-and he is happy to take me under his wing and he will help me settle
in. So I will not totally be ‘on my
own’. I will then hopefully meet his
friends, I will get a job, I will meet more people, make more friends and the
circle of life continues. As my friend
Christine told me when I was in LA, if things don’t work out it doesn’t mean I
have failed-and she is right. But if
Ethiopia doesn’t fit, I will try Tanzania, Sudan, Kenya….. until I find somewhere I do fit. It will happen I know that-I need to have a
little patience and that is NOT one of my greatest virtues…. I know-WHO would have thought?
So the breakup has not changed my resolve to help
people. It has not changed my plan to
move to Africa. It is all still go from
my end. What have I got to lose? And look at what people have to gain…… I will
start to find contact details for the charities I saw when we were driving
around the country in March and I will touch base with my contact for the UN
and see if I can get a foot in the door there as well. But I think my heart
lies to work in an orphanage. I love
kids, I would love to give them confidence to tackle a future, be proud of who
they are and for me to be a positive role model for them to make a change in
their lives. I think I could do that and
how rewarding would that be? But again
no one knows what the future holds and you just need to roll with the punches
right.
Life is too short to wake up in the morning with
regrets. So, love the people who treat
you right, forgive the ones who don’t and believe that everything happens for a
reason. If you get a chance, take
it. If it changes your life, let
it. Nobody said it’d be easy. They just promised it would be worth it.
At the end of the day both Zeme and I deserve to be
happy. I wish him all the happiness in
the world and if that means to be with different people, follow different paths
or have different ideas for the future then I call that fate and I am okay to
run with that and see where it takes me.
I know I have done everything right from my end and I have now decided
to run with my gut and my heart has had to take a back seat on this one after
it being the other way around for a long time.
A broken heart will heal.
This is my life and this is how I now roll.
Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a
wonderful stroke of luck.
So I thank everybody for all their kind words, worry and
virtual hugs. If anything this has
strengthen my resolve, I will become a stronger person and I am now in charge
of ME once again and not reliant on some-one else on what will happen next in
MY life. I can’t believe that I even let
it get that far. I was so desperate in
July when Zeme told me I couldn’t come to Ethiopia to live in September. I was devastated and I think back now and it
was quite pathetic. I don’t know how the
Elkins put up with me. How could I let some-one
make me feel like that. Anyway I am not
going to get into details but is super disappointing when I am not even getting
return messages-it has been a complete shutdown on his behalf and it makes it
difficult for me to get some closure and not even I can answer that
question-WHY. I always knew that firstly
long distance relationship’s, suck. But
I thought this was worth it. Secondly we
have a cultural barrier, but I was happy to work through that and lastly the
language barrier which was probably the most frustrating for me, but I knew
once I moved there and he got better at his English and I learnt Amharic that
this would be over-come no problems. It
was a short term issue for me…..
And the last question I know that everyone is thinking is
my tattoo that clearly has emblazoned on my left wrist, Zeme. I still love my tattoo, for what it meant
when I got and the way it looks mixed in with my mums tattoo. What the hell will I do now I hear you ask. I will leave it for now, but maybe after my
move I will go back to the same tattooist in Addis and get him to turn it into
something else for me. After I had Zeme
written on my wrist I had an after-thought that it would have been nice to get
it written in Amharic as a backup if things didn’t work out there would only be
a small amount of people that would know what it said and it still would have
looked cool. Anyway haven’t you people
seen LA Ink. They can change any tattoo
into anything. But that will be down the
track as it still symbolizes something to me and is still close to my heart for
now.
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a
new dream. That is where I am now and I
need to run full throttle into what life will throw at me next. This is what I have been dealing with on my
own the last 2 weeks and as sad as it is, I feel like a weight has been lifted
off me, I can breathe and I can see things again. It all sounds so prophetic but that is how I
feel. So as I sit at a Burger King in
Singapore International Airport writing this, waiting for the check-in counter
to open for me to check in for my flight to Nepal, with music in my ears and thoughts
of people in a much worse position than me, the least I can do is look up,
thank my mum, my travel gods and my friends.
I have my health and I am living the dream. Smile-as my first tear drops. Smile for what we had.
I loved 100%
I gave a 100%
….and I don’t regret a minute of it……
How sad…………….
