Something I thought I'd share with you..

The distance between A to B is 10501 miles, you start at ‘A’ knowing you have somewhere to be and a place to land but when you actually get to ‘B’, ironically all you can think about is what you had at ‘A’. The number 10501 never had such effect before it became the distance which separated one person from their little home, their little town, just their little old life. At 2230 the world is at my doorstep in the form of Melbourne freeway taking me east, every second inching me further and further away on the map, GPRS would have packed up and crashed if it had followed my whereabouts – probably would’ve left me at Iraq...or Afghanistan. Truthfully time moved on like a carousel in full spin.

 90 odd days until I would run my first 10k marathon, because the excitement of entering a new country obviously destroyed most rational thought and decided it would be fun to do it – less than 5 days now. When the stride picks up to a run, all rationality floods back through the blood stream, it suddenly becomes a rhythm game of synchronising breaths and strides, it becomes beautifully unchaotic and simple that two legs can take you from ‘A’ to ‘B’ without the help of anything else.

168 hours ago it seemed appropriate to fall out of a plane, to kiss goodbye to all sensibility that I once had and to embrace fearlessness, to forget the stupid things that held me back like the number 10501 which trapped me from moving anywhere at times – now the number has increased, being in New Zealand was amazing. To fall through the atmosphere for 45 life changing seconds injected something new in me – to make me stand up in a style similar to alcoholics anonymous and say that:

“My name is Olivia, and yes - I am an adrenalin junky”.

The next day, 5 people in a raft ploughed through the currents, in a stream encumbered by greenery and wildlife. Rapids which merge into waterfalls which end in a froth of cloudy, spitting water, moments which push you nearer to the edge until you forget your falling off the edge. Like the edge of a fall or the edge of a plane, 10501 means nothing now I’ve broken these boundaries.

2304 hours days of being a temporary Australian citizen, pushing geographical limits, wondering if it’s possible to get further away from home? Realising that the white water rafting that once petrified me seems awfully close in comparison to the flight I took 97 days ago which also petrified me. It’s also like knowing that perhaps ‘B’ is not a physical location but a kind of psychological state. Perhaps now I know that the route to get there is not simply a plane journey, of statistics of miles or of numbers, but a whole series of violently unpredictable rivers, roads and extreme descents.