Oh, Cassie, beautiful and heartbreaking. I always have so much to feel when I read your writing, in ways I am left feeling so grateful for everything. Thank you for vulnerably sharing another part of your journey. Beautiful writing. Thanks.
Love seeing the pics of you and your mom! I know exactly how to I feel about living in between. I feel it too, alllll the time. But it has positives as well, as you mentioned! ❤️
I so relate to this. I have tears reading it and now writing this.
I moved from Australia to Finland seven years ago and I know that feeling of carrying many places in your heart. I have a bit of all the place I've lived: 1970s Melbourne, Canada, country South Australia, Adelaide, Germany, 2013+ Melbourne, and now this place I call home where I spent a year aged 17. It makes for an interesting looking heart, really. A heart with many flavours. Different seasons, landscapes, languages.
I am so sorry you're grieving your lovely mum. The early-dementia diagnosis is such a brutal one for everyone concerned. I am holding you and your family in my multi-coloured and patterned heart.
Oh thank you so much for all your kind words and for sharing your story, too, Lisa! I can only imagine your multicoloured heart with all those lives lived.
It's so funny because I wouldn't have changed much of what I've done or any of the places I've lived for the world but often I feel like a fish out of water, especially here in Australia. When we've travelled like it sounds like you and I have (I spent 7 years travelling the world and calling everywhere from Cambodia to Guatemala home before "crashlanding" in Perth), it can be hard to find kinship with people who've never left or had similar experiences.
It feels like all these doors we've opened mean we see and view the world differently - and leaving families, friends, and lives behind doesn't really help with the fracture, either. There's always something about being torn, but there's so much magic in it, too. It's like you can't have one without the other - the cost and the benefit. It's not easy, but it's worth it - even with all the pain of being so far away when it all falls apart.
Sending you so much love on your journey and journeys, too! Finland seems like an incredible place to live 💜
Thanks for reading, Bel! It's been an interesting couple of weeks but I'm so grateful that writing can be an outlet to work through it and process it all and that it can also have value for others, too. What a gift this platform can be sometimes! 🥰💜
Thanks Rachel! Yeah, me too. It's been so weird being back - I feel so homesick for the home I've just left behind, but also so grateful to be here, too. I always forget the reverse "culture shock" that seems to hit harder on the way back, just like the jetlag does! Still, it's worth it, too, even with the split hearts. Appreciate the solidarity! 💜💜💜
Oh, Cassie, beautiful and heartbreaking. I always have so much to feel when I read your writing, in ways I am left feeling so grateful for everything. Thank you for vulnerably sharing another part of your journey. Beautiful writing. Thanks.
Love seeing the pics of you and your mom! I know exactly how to I feel about living in between. I feel it too, alllll the time. But it has positives as well, as you mentioned! ❤️
I so relate to this. I have tears reading it and now writing this.
I moved from Australia to Finland seven years ago and I know that feeling of carrying many places in your heart. I have a bit of all the place I've lived: 1970s Melbourne, Canada, country South Australia, Adelaide, Germany, 2013+ Melbourne, and now this place I call home where I spent a year aged 17. It makes for an interesting looking heart, really. A heart with many flavours. Different seasons, landscapes, languages.
I am so sorry you're grieving your lovely mum. The early-dementia diagnosis is such a brutal one for everyone concerned. I am holding you and your family in my multi-coloured and patterned heart.
Oh thank you so much for all your kind words and for sharing your story, too, Lisa! I can only imagine your multicoloured heart with all those lives lived.
It's so funny because I wouldn't have changed much of what I've done or any of the places I've lived for the world but often I feel like a fish out of water, especially here in Australia. When we've travelled like it sounds like you and I have (I spent 7 years travelling the world and calling everywhere from Cambodia to Guatemala home before "crashlanding" in Perth), it can be hard to find kinship with people who've never left or had similar experiences.
It feels like all these doors we've opened mean we see and view the world differently - and leaving families, friends, and lives behind doesn't really help with the fracture, either. There's always something about being torn, but there's so much magic in it, too. It's like you can't have one without the other - the cost and the benefit. It's not easy, but it's worth it - even with all the pain of being so far away when it all falls apart.
Sending you so much love on your journey and journeys, too! Finland seems like an incredible place to live 💜
What a lovely and beautiful insight about the ups and downs and the give and take of life. Thank you for sharing. Xx
Thanks for reading, Bel! It's been an interesting couple of weeks but I'm so grateful that writing can be an outlet to work through it and process it all and that it can also have value for others, too. What a gift this platform can be sometimes! 🥰💜
Yes, we carry in our hearts all those places and yes, we’ll always feel a bit torn. Glad you have a place to now call home.
Thanks Rachel! Yeah, me too. It's been so weird being back - I feel so homesick for the home I've just left behind, but also so grateful to be here, too. I always forget the reverse "culture shock" that seems to hit harder on the way back, just like the jetlag does! Still, it's worth it, too, even with the split hearts. Appreciate the solidarity! 💜💜💜
Reverse culture shock. I like that expression.❤️💔❤️🩹❤️