Dear KH Chroniclers,

It is my great pleasure to annouce that after months of drama, pitches, planning and unemployment, I am finally departing on my whirlwind adventure overseas.

I would like to thank you all for your support, comments and encouragement over the last 10 months The KH Chronicles has been in operation. This makes for my 100th post and seems a fitting way to end what has been a life-changing 'way to waste time'.

While The KH Chronicles may be going on standby while I am away, I am proud to offer you an alternative fix...

Where In The World Is KH? will be chronicling every hostel, happy camper and horror story as I make my way from Summer Camp to snow-capped mountains. I'm making no promises that it will be every day (we all know the internet is entirely to unreliable for such a declaration) but regular(ish) posts are a promise.

Cheers once again, and for the last time...

Ciao for now. xo

Real

Tomorrow, I am flying to New York City.


I have been telling myself this all day, trying to make it sink in. But it still feels surreal, a fantasy, like at any moment I am going to be wrenched awake and faced with the sad reality of my boring life.

But this is real.

The backpack sitting on my bed, stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey and the zippers straining to prove it, is real. My crisp passport with all but one international stamp, lying snug inside my travel wallet, is real. The ticket waiting for me at Brisbane International Airport, is real. My seat on the plane to New York City, is real. All. Oh. So. Real.

I still feel a little lost – like I should be feeling more. Like I should be scared shitless or so excited I can’t sleep. But despite the ‘real’ I am faced with as I pack up my life and kiss everyone goodbye, I still feel strangely empty inside. There are no overwhelming nerves tempting me to chew off all my nails. No buzz of excitement pulsing through my veins. Tonight- my last night in Australia, my last night with my family, my last night eating a home-cooked meal and sleeping in my warm little bed – feels like any other ordinary night.

It’s as if I am somehow at peace with all the excitement and the nerves. I have spent 10 long months coming to grips with the fact that I am going that in my own head, I think I am already gone. I think I left a long time ago, the moment I first saw the website for Appel Farm Summer Camp.

But I can’t deny that the excitement still gets to me. It creeps up on me every now and again and gives me a nudge, a reminder that even though I might feel calm, this is still the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. This is still the bravest, the biggest, the ballsiest leap of faith I’ve ever made. You can’t fool yourself out of that kind of excitement.

Tomorrow, I am flying to New York City. Tomorrow I am gone.

Ciao for now. xo

It's About Time

Tick tock - here that? The countdown is officially on. Not only have we entered the home stretch, we are approaching the finish line with surprising speed.

I can't believe that six months ago I didn't think the clock could tick any slower. Now it feels like the minute hand is spinning around at warp speed. And the realisation is most profound - not only have the last two weeks of my time in Queensland sped past like a V8, but the last six months, not to mention the last five years.

That's right. I've been out of highschool for five years. Where exactly did that time go?

Oh that's right... into a HECS bill.

Time has always been an enemy of mine. Every corner of my life is ruled by time. Deadlines. From my profession right down to boiling the kettle to make a cup of tea. Everything is a matter of how long it will take to do something, how long I have to complete a task, how long I have to wait. I am a walking expiry date, terrified of going mouldy.

It's always been this way. When I was in Year 12, I knew the end of the year held this monstrous rite-of-passage where I would finally move out of Gympie and to the big smoke in Brisbane. Nothing and no one was going to prevent me from doing so. I didn't want any excuse to stay in Gympie. So in those final months I stayed well away from boys and any ties they might bring.

It was the same when I moved to Sydney. Once I made that decision, I didn't want to have to leave anyone behind. Finding myself a boyfriend so close to moving away would only further complicate my ambition, so I denied myself and moved into my new digs in New South Wales as a single gal.

And literally like clockwork, I'm now back in the same place. Leaving again and not wanting any further reason to make it hard on myself. The deadline of going away is difficult enough without the addition of a broken heart.

So I'm a walking expiry date. Always have been. And maybe that means I haven't had as much (well, let's be honest Mr. Abbott) any experience when it comes to working in the romance department. Maybe that means I am an emotional cripple, a commitment-phobe, and the poor boy who eventually decides to love me is going to have an interesting time dealing with my fear of settling down, but whatever. At least I am not mouldy. My plan had cause. I am free to do whatever I like, with who ever I like, where ever I like without anyone or any boy to tell me otherwise.

But the plan isn't flawless. I may not have a boy to leave behind, but there's always someone. Or somebodies. And being back in Brisbane for these last few days has reminded me of that. It may be easier not growing mouldy and always being the one who leaves, but you can never escape the sting of leaving somebody behind.

I guess I thought I didn't have that much to lose by going overseas. Brisbane seemed like an eternity ago, I had a small circle of friends in Sydney and had spent the last year busting my butt in job which was a daily struggle for survival. All the stars seemed aligned for ditching it all to go overseas. But being back in Brisvegas with my friends has totally thrown me. I am reminded of everyone I love and who loves me and who have continued loving me despite all my galivanting around. And who will love me when I leave. And who will love me when I get back. And who will love me when I eventually leave again. Friends like that are hard to find and mine must be awfully forgiving, for all the whiplash I put them through.

So this post is dedicated to those people - Brisbane and Sydney alike - friends who have welcomed me into their lives even though I so frequently leave. Friends who keep up with me as I run ahead of my deadlines and who I know will never, ever let me grow mouldy.

Ciao for now. xo

The Sound of Silence

After 15 hours of driving, three too many cups of McDonald’s coffee and one horrifying experience with a pit toilet just outside of Grafton, my mother, my self and all my stuff finally made it safely home. I have officially left Sydney. And in 17 days, I officially leave the country.
Despite all the hoopla that led up to my going overseas, leaving Sydney feels like the first step of many. For the last six months, I’ve felt like a sitting duck. I’ve been counting down the days till I leave like an excited child counts down to Christmas. This trip has been the bright, shining beacon of hope that has guided me through life’s putrid swamp. And now, it’s a mere 17 days away.
It’s strange being home. For the last 18 months, I’ve been living in a city which literally never sleeps. I can’t remember a night which hasn’t been interrupted with the screams of a siren speeding down ANZAC Parade or the grumbles of the gutter cleaners as they sweep the leaves and litter and cigarette butts out of Sydney’s streets. At first, those sounds kept me awake for hours. Now, my nights are empty without them.

My parents’ place may as well be in a different world, let alone a different state. Garbage trucks and the loud whir of air-conditioning fans have been replaced by bird calls and the stop-start sound of a postman’s motorbike. You can actually hear the wind.
And nighttime is worse. There is nothing but silence. A silence so deafening, it keeps me awake. There are no gutter cleaners or wailing sirens or the faint conversation of the tenants who live upstairs. Just silence – thick, empty silence.

Lying awake last night listening for the sound of anything – cars, dogs, an axe-wielding murderer coming to slice me in my insomnia – I realized this was what I had been craving for the last six months, to be free of all the loud, stressful sound in my life. The sound of every minute ticking by in which I wasn’t making money, the sound of people telling me ‘No’ or worse, the empty sound of people telling me nothing at all. The sound of my computer loading my email account and the sound of the sigh which escaped me when I saw the inbox was still empty.
Finally, after months and months of sound, there is nothing but silence.
As I lay in bed, I realised my moving out of Sydney and my making the first step towards my trip, means I no longer have to be defined by those sounds. Instead, they have been replaced with silence. A silence which means I have nothing and no one to answer to, no responsibilities, no stress to be preoccupied over. A silence which can only be filled with one thing – my thoughts.
And they are unwaveringly, unabashedly, 100 percent obsessed with what will happen in 17 days.

Ciao for now. xo