Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Amusement Park Emotions

Well, as you may have guessed, last week was a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. But then again, if I'd been completely cool about it, I'd probably have been somewhat deluded.

The thing about roller-coasters, though, is that as terrifying as they are, once you let yourself remember that you'll be fine in the end, then you can focus more on enjoying the thrill of the ride. And the same applies to this trip to Japan. Yes, it's true that I'll be taking some risks, but it's not going to kill me.

Well, not unless we have to live next to a failing nuclear power plant situated on an active fault line.

This evening I attended an author talk with Meg Rosoff, who is visiting Melbourne at the moment, and one thing she said in particular struck me:

"If you have a safety net, you tend to jump into it."

And when I look back in my life so far, the times I've thrived most is when I've moved out of my comfort zone. There was no real "safety net". I needed to keep myself active and switched on, otherwise I was going to crash and burn. Which I certainly did, emotionally, a number of times, and most notably when I finally decided to move back to Melbourne.

And so, almost exactly five years since I first left Melbourne to live in Darwin, I'll be flying out to Japan. I've bought my one-way ticket today, and it's non-refundable.

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