The Many Lives We Live

A few weeks ago, I walked into a hair salon intending to get a little trim.

Nothing dramatic. Just the usual maintenance.

Somewhere along the way, my hairdresser suggested we do something different. Something a little wild.

And, much to my own surprise, I said, “Yeah, why not? It could be fun.”

Twenty centimetres later, I walked out with considerably less hair and a rather different version of myself staring back at me in the mirror.

The old me would have been horrified.

For years, I was the woman who wanted the absolute bare minimum taken off. Just the ends, please. And even then, I'd be watching those scissors rather suspiciously.

Now here I was, casually agreeing to chop off years of growth on a whim.

And the funny thing?

I absolutely love it.

You know how people say that when a woman drastically changes her hair, something significant is happening in her life?

Well, perhaps they're onto something.

Although I suspect the transformation had already begun long before the scissors came out.

Lately, something within me seems to be shifting.

I've been saying yes to things I might once have overthought. Trying new experiences. Challenging myself physically. Feeling more spontaneous, more adventurous, and perhaps a little less attached to the woman I thought I was supposed to be.

I recently decided to get back into working out properly and finally tried an actual Pilates studio.

Naturally, the Aries in me thought it would be an excellent idea to begin with an intense hot strength class.

Why ease yourself into something when you can throw yourself straight into the deep end?

I emerged shaking, sweating, and quietly wondering whether we'd really needed to push ourselves quite that hard, all before breakfast.

And then, rather inconveniently, I loved it.

I've been hooked ever since.

The hot part, however, is negotiable.

Now I'm contemplating boxing, something I've wanted to try for years, and a few other workouts that look suspiciously like they might leave me questioning my decisions all over again.

There's something rather wonderful about rediscovering what your body is capable of. About feeling strong, alive, and willing to be a beginner at something.

And yet, while one part of me seems increasingly interested in challenging myself, another part is craving something much quieter.
 

A place to call home.
 

Since returning to Australia, I've been searching for somewhere to put down roots.

A little home surrounded by trees, ideally with enough space to breathe, the ocean not too far away, and a garden where I can potter around and grow things.

Nothing particularly extravagant.

Just somewhere that feels like mine.

After spending so much of my adult life moving between countries, cities and homes, the idea of staying somewhere for a while feels strangely adventurous in its own right.

Who would have thought?

The woman who once found the idea of settling down rather terrifying is now dreaming about a vegetable garden.

Life has a sense of humour.

Of course, finding a rental in Australia is an adventure of its own.

The applications are so thorough that I half expected to be asked for my blood type, childhood report cards, and a character reference from my dog.

But something unexpectedly beautiful came out of the whole process.

I found myself reaching out to people I hadn't spoken to in years.

Former landlords. Old friends. People who had known me in Rome, Tuscany, in France, and in entirely different chapters of my life.

People who had welcomed me into their homes, shared meals with me, watched me grow, or simply crossed my path at a particular moment in time.

And one by one, they replied.

With warmth. Kindness. Affection.

Some remembered little details. Others asked how life had unfolded since we last saw one another.

And suddenly, what began as a rather tedious administrative task became something much more meaningful.

I found myself unexpectedly emotional.

Because reconnecting with these people reminded me of just how many lives I've lived within this one lifetime.

There was the young woman who arrived in Rome, full of curiosity, with no real idea of how much that city would shape her.

The woman who wandered through cobbled streets, built friendships, fell in love with people and places, made mistakes, discovered new parts of herself, and slowly created a life far away from where she'd begun.

There were the years I spent living across Italy. The different homes. The people who became family. The spontaneous adventures. The ordinary days that, looking back, were anything but ordinary.

And all the other chapters in between.

Some beautiful.

Some difficult.

Some that I would happily revisit tomorrow.

Others that taught me everything I needed to know before I could leave them behind.
 

It's a peculiar thing, nostalgia.
 

You can be perfectly happy with where your life is heading and still feel a sudden ache for a version of it that no longer exists.

Not necessarily because you want to return.

But because, for a moment, you're reminded of how much you loved being there.

How much those people meant to you.

How much life was happening while you were simply busy living it.

I think we sometimes underestimate the significance of the people who pass through our lives.

Not everyone is meant to stay forever.

Some people accompany us for decades. Others for a season. Some appear at precisely the right moment, change something within us, and disappear into the background of our story.

And yet, years later, a simple message can bring an entire chapter rushing back.

The streets. The smells. The conversations. The person you were then.

It made me feel enormously grateful.

Not only for the people who have loved me, helped me, challenged me, or offered me a place to belong.

But for all the different versions of myself who had the courage to go out into the world and experience those things in the first place.

Even the ones who had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

Especially those ones.

Lately, I've also been noticing how much my idea of a beautiful life has changed.

I've been spending more time outdoors. Wandering through the bush in search of waterfalls, swimming in the ocean, exploring little coastal towns where not much happens, and feeling rather delighted by that fact.

The more time I spend in nature, the more I realise how little I actually need to feel deeply content.

Trees. Water. Space. Silence.

A little wildness.

People I love.

Work that means something to me.

And the freedom to occasionally abandon whatever I had planned and go looking for a waterfall.

And then, just when I think I've become a woman who wants nothing more than trees, waterfalls and absolute silence, I spend a day on the Gold Coast and find myself thoroughly enjoying the complete opposite.

The towering high-rises. The beautiful beaches. The energy. The beautiful people and beach bodies everywhere (because apparently that's part of the scenery too).

I've always had a thing for skyscrapers, and there's something about that glamorous, bustling coastal city atmosphere that I absolutely love.

It's such a vibe.

And it made me smile, because apparently I can be equally delighted by a quiet forest and a skyline full of skyscrapers.

Perhaps that's the beauty of getting to know yourself better.

Realising that you don't have to fit neatly into one particular way of living.

You can appreciate entirely different worlds without needing to belong to just one.

And I think that's what I've been discovering lately.

That the different parts of ourselves don't necessarily contradict one another.

One part of me wants to try everything. Cut my hair. Take up boxing. Challenge myself. Say yes to the unexpected.

The other wants to slow down. Find a home. Plant things. Read books. Watch the seasons change.

But perhaps these aren't opposing desires.

Perhaps they're simply different expressions of the same thing.
 

Freedom.
 

For a long time, I associated freedom with movement.

With the ability to leave, to explore, to begin again somewhere entirely new.

And I still love that.

I suspect I always will.

But lately, I've been discovering another kind of freedom.
 

The freedom to stay.
 

To build something slowly.

To create a life that doesn't constantly need escaping from.

One that feels expansive not because of how much is happening, but because of how deeply I'm able to experience it.

Perhaps that's one of the gifts of getting older.

You begin to understand that you don't have to choose one version of yourself and remain her forever.

You can be the adventurous woman who has lived in different countries and the woman who wants a quiet home surrounded by trees.

The woman who loves silence and solitude and the one who gets excited by a city skyline.

The woman who cherishes her past and the one who is excited about everything she hasn't yet experienced.

You can be all of them.

And you can change your mind.

You can outgrow things you once desperately wanted.

You can discover new desires you never saw coming.

You can wake up one morning and realise that the life you're dreaming of looks nothing like the one you imagined ten years ago.

And that doesn't mean you've lost your way.
 

Perhaps it means you've been paying attention.
 

I don't know exactly what this next chapter will look like.

Where I'll eventually settle. What new experiences I'll throw myself into. Which people I'll meet. What unexpected turns life has waiting.

But for the first time in a while, I don't feel particularly compelled to have all the answers.
 

I'm enjoying the unfolding.
 

And I'm feeling rather grateful for all the lives that brought me here.

For the people who knew me before I became who I am today.

For the places that once felt like home.

For the friendships that have survived years, countries, and long stretches of silence.

For the woman I was at twenty, who couldn't possibly have imagined the life ahead of her.

And for the woman I'm becoming, who still has no idea what's around the corner.
 

And I wonder whether you've experienced something similar.

Whether you've ever looked back at a former chapter of your life and marvelled at how different everything once was. The places you called home. The people you loved. The things you wanted so desperately that no longer hold quite the same meaning.

Maybe you've discovered, too, that changing doesn't mean leaving those earlier versions of yourself behind.

Perhaps growing older isn't about becoming one fixed version of ourselves. 

Perhaps it's about discovering how many different versions of ourselves we can be within a single lifetime.
 

The ones we've been.

The ones we've outgrown.

The ones we occasionally miss.

And the ones we're still becoming.

And perhaps the most beautiful part is realising that none of those chapters ever truly disappear.

We carry a little of each of them with us.

Even when we decide, quite spontaneously, to cut twenty centimetres off our hair.