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Near Coonabarabran NSW
I once had the brilliant epiphany so common among the restless: travel the country, wild and free.

I dreamed of nomadic adventures, a life free of itineraries and time restraints; of picking fruit and living with travelers; of going where convenience and the calls of my heart led me.

That was over a year ago, before I got side tracked with falling in love, getting absorbed in someone else’s life, making some chaotic decisions, throwing all my dreams to the side, and finally taking the time to heal from a broken heart.

Today, I hear so many people tell me that I have to give up on those dreams now; that you can’t travel when you have a baby, it’s just not practical – or is it just not conventional?

They tell me that babies, children, they need stability, an environment grounded in routine. Who am I to argue? I have no defensive argument, no experience with parenthood.

There’s still an estimated 12 weeks until this kid really changes everything, so until then, I guess I can trek on as per the usual, aside from the fact that I'm hopelessly tired most of the time, and I can't celebrate a day's worth of travel by getting drunk.

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Near Narrabri NSW
I don’t plan to give up on my dreams just because I’m becoming a mum.

I plan to travel the hell out of the world before the Wolf Cub is ready for school. My feet are too itchy to give up on my travel dreams.

I’ve seen a fair whack of Australia already. I did manage to get from A to B last year, and I visited some beautiful places.

But those experiences are tainted by false memories and unhealthy lifestyle choices that are achingly hard to relive.

So I’ve decided to start again.

I've recently become a blank canvas, and my world is a world of reclaiming my independence and redefining my identity. Whether it be with a pregnant belly or a bundle of baby fun, I’m still committed to my dreams, and that includes a lot of traveling!

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Objects in mirror...
After my hospital appointment this beautiful Thursday morning, I got in the car with my dear mum.

We began our two day journey from Cowra, NSW, where she lives (and incidentally where I’ve hung my hat until the Wolf Cub is a few months old) to Mt Nebo, QLD, with an evening stopover in Moree, NSW.

There were 3 generations of our family’s women in the car: my mum in the driver’s seat, me in the passenger seat, and baby in utero.

The sun was beating down on us, and I embraced the warmth, letting myself forget that tomorrow is the first day of winter. The landscape evolved; rolling hills became endless flats, wheat farms became cotton farms, and the black ribbon, with its' white trimmings beckoned us forward, while the enormous Jellybean inside me wriggled and rolled to the sound of The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix.

I forgot how much I loved the tiring journeys, the endless days of driving through changing countryside, of contemplating history and life. And I realised: I could never give it up, its in my blood.

P.S: An explanation for the below average pics - I took them with my phone...at 110kmph.

 
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I've been waiting for a sign to tell me that I'm out of the woods. Some watershed moment or crystallising awakening of happiness that wrenches me from the clasps of unhappiness and catapults me into awesomeness, so that I somehow forget all the things that have been weighing down my heart.

This is my first blog post, and I've been procrastinating over it. I knew it would be personal, I knew it would be honest, but I didn't know how to write it, and I didn't really want to.

Then last night, after an uneventful phone call to my dad, I found myself alone. Friday night, pregnant, single, lonely and sad. I started to cry. At first, it was just a few tears, but they soon graduated into a huge outburst of grief, and it lasted until I ran out of energy. I nestled down on my friends' couch with her cat, and drifted to sleep, still broken but somewhat relieved of the fear of constantly reliving my memories.

Depression is so unbelievably common in our society, that I can't believe how isolating it is; how lonely it is to be trapped in that dark place, surrounded by people feeling the same way, yet somehow painfully removed from them and the rest of the 'normal' people altogether.

After three months of grieving and negotiating with my broken heart for a man who could never return the love I had for him, I still wait for the morning when I wake up and accept that I'm pregnant and anticipating the best thing in my life, while the person I thought I'd be sharing that with is now sharing his life with someone else 5000kms away.

I stand strong in my positive thoughts that a new day will bring with it a new appreciation of a new life; that all my affirmations and creative distractions are dissolving the sadness and rejection and disappointment that has plagued my heart. Most of the time, while it's challenging, it's relatively easy to uphold that hope. At other times, it creeps up on me with a sack brimming with memories, a lot of desperate sobbing and an endless pile of soggy tissues.

And then I feel a little kick from within.

A nudge from my little jellybean ^_^

It's as though she's reminding me that now there are two of us; of how far we've come together, that a few months ago six out of seven days were blitzed by memories, sobbing and soggy tissues. Back then, I could hardly pull myself up off the floor or think a thought that wasn't ex-related. I didn't believe there could possibly be happiness and fulfillment ahead of me, and that my future offered little more than a lifetime of discontent.

As of today, I am officially in my third trimester. There are only 90 days until my due date. Morning and night I can lie down and watch my belly wriggle. I can dream about the first time I see her eyes, or the first time I hear her laugh. I have a little collection of tiny clothes that I fold, unfold and fold again, imagine her little body filling the grow-suits. I have a rainbow collection of cloth nappies under my bed, and the ingredients for my mum's tried and tested home recipe for nappy soak.

There are some shitty parts to this equation, granted. But all that is pretty meaningless when I consider the realities. If I've come this far in three months, how far can I go in another three months? Six months? A year?

My future is so unknown and unpredictable, and that's just the way I like it. I have a lifetime of creating, traveling, learning, teaching, writing and music ahead of me, and I get to share it all with my baby girl.

Even though it's too late for 'what ifs', they still linger, and they will for a while. There will still be times when the soggy tissues pile up uncontrollably and I wake up feeling sad and at a loss. But accepting that reality, well, the sooner the better. Those days will only decrease in frequency; I can only go further forward. There's no room for me to go backwards.

I'm on an adventure. Life is awesome.