Surprise Me September

Surprise Me September

One month ago I returned from what was the best holiday  of my life. To be perfectly  honest, everything about my trip was somewhat of a spiritual experience, which (don't freak out and make a presumption that I am crazy yet) can be traced back through the generations even!

Thirty five years ago my parents (my age at the time) were cycling around Europe. They meet a Swedish couple in a back packers, in Holland. They formed a friendship with Peter and Veveca Branstrom right away. Little did they know that thirty five years later, their offspring (myself and my new, very special friend, Ellinor) would spend a summer together, in a glorious place, neither of us can call home!

My parents and Peter and Vevica exchanged contact details. They kept in touch. While I was a child we visited the Swedish family once and they visited us in my hometown; Christchurch, New Zealand. Ellinor and I did not really stay on touch. However, when I decided to move to London I got in touch with the family. I travelled to Scandanavia as soon as I arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, in March. I only meet up with Ellinor for an hour or so but we both felt we were destined to be great friends. Thanks mum, dad, Peter and Vevica.

I returned to London to pursuit with supply teaching. A very challenging form of earning a living but one which lacked the responsibility of being a classroom teacher and also one which offered me holiday time, to travel.

August quickly approached and I had secured myself a job as a classroom teacher for the following school year, beginning in September. I felt neither positively nor negatively towards this approaching job. If I'm honest now, I did not think about it at all really, I was caught up in the moment, feeling very grateful for the amazing experiences I was having on the other side of the world!

However, I was faced with a wee bit of a financial predicament! Supply teachers do not get paid over summer. So I effectively had two and a half months (time up to my first pay cheque) of no pay. Not so much fun! Savings had looooooong been exhausted! As I was pondering what to do with myself over this time, Ellinor got in touch with me saying she had found a job in Palma. A city on a beautiful island, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. There are worst places in the world to work that is for sure! She works in fashion design and had just bought an apartment there. She asked if I would like to come and stay. I very cheekily requested to stay (free load - sorry Ellinor) for the entire month of August! She agreed but I think we both felt like there was somewhat of a risk involved. We barely new each other after all!!

However, I arrived as dramatically as always (I don't know if I was born to deal with the technicalities of traveling - I'll need to marry someone who can do that for me) and we both had the most amazing time together! We had both taken very different pathways in life, picking up different lessons along the way. Our different ways of viewing life were beneficial to both of us and we managed to exchange viewpoints and learn from each other. When time came for me to leave, we both felt very emotional and grateful towards our parents for blindly initiating an unlikely friendship, so many years ago.

I returned to London as a stronger person because of Ellinor. A little bit of her, or a lot, had rubbed off on me. I also had come back having witnessed nature at its absolute best and equipped with a calmness which often comes associated with this. I also felt true happiness. I had had ALOT of time to think about what makes me happy and what has consistently done so, throughout my life. What I came up with continues to do so despite location, company or any other variable. I came to the realisation that running makes me happy and running has been my rock through many tough times I have faced in recent years . I decided that running simply is the 'love of my life'!

I found it a bit difficult to return to normality to be honest. My time on the island was almost to good to be true! I pinched myself numerous times and had to time and time again remind myself how incredibly lucky I was that my life circumstances had brought me there. Back in London, one month ago now, I posted an image to my beloved Instagram page - "Surprise me September. " http://instagram.com/erinwhitla

September surprised me and I surprised myself.

To be continued......
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