The Rise.

I think it’s fair to say I’m caught in a small daydream right now. From a bird’s-eye view, my life looks as though it exists between two opposing realities. Holding both at once has become a delicate dance, one I would probably admit I’m butchering… or perhaps I’m simply being too hard on myself. Both feel equally probable. So why is this exactly?

I’ve happily found myself back in the Byron Shire, a place I assumed I wouldn’t return to for another year or so. And honestly, it’s been nothing short of a delight. My days have been filled with surprising friends, lighthouse walks and an excessive amount of beach therapy. Entirely appropriate, considering I now have that word permanently tattooed on my ASS. Yes, I almost wish I was joking but hey, live whilst you’re young right?

Yet something has quietly come to light over these last few days of frolicking.

Byron is the place that truly holds my heart. It offers me warmth and clarity unlike anywhere else, which is why I’ve finally begun calling it home. But returning has felt like a subtle, almost rude (if I was to be a Nelly) awakening to just how much I’ve internally changed. Confronting, yet not necessarily in a negative way, I just need to untangle it in order to appreciate it.

I’m no longer the girl I was who moved here. Even though I’ve slipped straight back into familiar routines and rhythms, everything somehow feels… distant? I’ve spent the last few days analysing that feeling, trying to find the exact language for it. And without sounding arrogant, that rarely happens to me. Words usually arrive easily. Yet “distant” is the closest I can get right now.

It’s as though the attachment I once held so tightly has quietly dissolved.

The love remains. The friendships remain. Being here feels effortless, almost as if I never left at all. But my attachment is gone, because I’ve realised I wasn’t holding onto Byron itself.

My friends still see me as me. Byron, as a place, will always receive me exactly as I am. I can come and go and slip back into its rhythm as though no time has passed. So what was I clinging to?

I was holding onto the version of myself that was born here.

She arrived innocently, stripped back from the reality she’d been living in for so damn long and chose to leave behind everything familiar. She stripped herself of old burdens and allowed a completely different perspective on life to emerge. She chose courage over comfort and walked directly into the unknown.

That was the girl who decided to leave Byron and continue exploring.

And somewhere along the way, without even realising it, I began to admire her. Almost as though she existed separately from me. I’ve been in awe of the bravery she carried and the openness she had to rewrite her own story.

But over the past six months, something has shifted. I’ve noticed… I am her now. She wasn’t created because of a place. Byron was simply the seed. The environment that allowed her to begin her renewal.

Now she exists regardless of location. The light she found here travels with her. It follows her wherever she goes next.

And that apiphony has been incredibly freeing. Because instead of feeling tethered to somewhere beautiful, I now feel confident walking forward knowing I carry that version of myself with me.

I am her.

And what a delightful discovery that is… I can now walk forward knowing my new experiences only add value to that woman, and do not subtract from.