Carpe Diem

Well I finally did it after a few weeks of kinda-sorta-possibly thinking I might do it. Yes, I set up a blog with the help of my friend cesca, bloggess extraordinare, We were sitting outside in the (sadly, all-too-rare-at-the-moment) sun having a chat when I mentioned I was thinking of starting my own blog. She offered to help me set it up, and here I am!

One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog is because I am moving soon, to Auckland, and it could be a way of keeping in touch with people. (Or just a place for me to ruminate and ramble mindlessly. I'm fairly good at that).

Whether I'll actually stay in Auckland permanently is anyone's guess because I don't even know if I'll like living there yet. The main reasons I chose Auckland is it is quite different from where I live now and it is warmer. But it seems most people have a negative view of the place. Some people get why I want to move, but most people seem to think I'm a bit odd for uprooting myself and my family for no 'real' reason. When people find out I'm moving the conversation tends to go a bit like this:

Chia: "I'm moving to Auckland at the end of the year."

Person (8 times out of 10): "Why would you want to live there? Have you got a man/new job up there?" or (more rarely) "That's exciting! Why are you going?"

Chia: "Uhm....well I just felt like I needed a change."

Person (looks confused): "Oh...ohkaaay."

The truth is I don't really have a compelling reason to move anywhere. I have a comfortable life here, I just feel I need to branch out. I'm a bit like those people that settled down really young and never did the clubbing, pubbing, drunken debauchery that most people experience in their late teens and early twenties. Then they hit their thirties, split up from their partner, and suddenly they are the thirty-something in the club with all the younguns. 

Now I did a lot of nightclub hopping in my younger years, more than enough to ensure I have no desire to bother with any of that again. However during the time when many people are off doing their big OE or moving cities, I stayed put in my hometown. Various things kept me there, in theory mostly relationships, but underneath the real reason was just fear of change and lack of momentum. When you are in your mid-twenties you think you have endless time ahead of you to do whatever you want. So I procrastinated.

I'm still afraid of change to some extent, but the great thing for me about getting older (there have got to be some benefits to ageing) is that I realise that if I want to do something, the time to do it is now. Not some vague unspecified time in the future. Carpe Diem really starts to become something real, rather than just a feel good quote. 

It is a mission moving not just myself, but my daughter, my business, and all our stuff to a different city. There are hundreds of things to work out. It might work out for me, it might not. But I have come to realise the things I regret most in life are the things I either didn't try, or only half-heartedly tried. I sure don't regret my nightclubbing days even though I have no desire to repeat them. But I do regret not spreading my wings more when I was younger.

So I'm seizing the day and leaving. I may be back, I may not. I may love it, I may hate it. But I really don't think I'll regret giving it a go, either way.