When crossing rivers, the first thought should always be, “Do I need to get my boots wet? Can I see a safer and easier way to cross?” I feel like the last two years have been one bloody long river crossing. As each of us do our best to navigate through these weird times, one thing’s for sure, we’re so far down the river that whatever awaits us on the other side, there’s no going back. The ‘new normal’ just becomes, well, normal.

There were plenty of times that the river looked calm and getting my boots wet didn’t seem so bad. I remember the days when wearing masks was a fashion accessory more than a necessity. Videos of Six60’s massive summer concerts in New Zealand beamed across the world and jaws dropped. Apart from a couple of lockdowns, my life pretty much went on as usual until the last six months.

As the Omicron community cases kept climbing at the start of the year, we could see the waters start to get murkier by the day. Even though we had watched the rest of the world experience our current reality, there was so much we as a country had to figure out on our own too. The river wasn’t only just rising, it was in flood.

Same, same but different - what's your love language?

When I told my workmates that I was going to spend a week in the South Island, one of them asked cheekily if I had anything romantic planned for Valentine’s Day. I had a giggle. I’m the only single one in our team and I guess it’s been awhile since I talked about my dating life. “Not really, probably just coffee with Katri.” We all laughed. Katri and I used to work together and both live in Whakatāne. We were doing the Routeburn Great Walk together.

How do I describe our friendship? Katri’s curious, with a refreshingly straightforward honesty. She will hit me with life questions out of the blue - out on the street, scrambling down Conical Hill or mud deep in the bush. If she’s thinking about it, you bet she will ask the question. Normally, if anyone else asked me personal questions in such open settings, I would tip toe around my answer. I guess our friendship has taught me to be more honest with myself, to have the courage to say how I really feel, which has made me a more honest communicator too.

Be the river, not the rock

My friend Tamizan is what 12-year-old me wanted to be growing up: Smart, independent, financially stable and a homeowner. She’s only in her mid-thirties and already kicking ass at adulting.

Like me, she's a cultural milkshake too - a child of Indian parents who immigrated to Canada. Tamizan was born into Western society with the traditional expectations of Asian culture. We’ve had plenty of discussions about our upbringings and how it has shaped us as women - our sometimes strained relationship with our parents as we seek out independence. A lot of that has spilled over into our dating lives.

In Frederick Travis’ book, ‘Your Brain is a River, Not a Rock,’ our brains are said to be an interface between us and the world, and will change based on our experiences throughout our lives. These shape our perspective of ourselves and the world around us.

Last year, Tamizan got sick. She was bed ridden, lethargic and in pain. The kind of sickness that even after months of tests, the doctors couldn't figure out why her body has suddenly begun to attack her body from the inside out.

What is enough, and how will you know when you have it?

Like Alice, I went down a hole recently. YouTube recommendations took me down the Stoicism rabbit hole - quite the change from my usual tarot readings, 80s ballads and the Ink Master tattoo series. What the heck, I don’t even have a tattoo! One morning I clicked on a YouTube short from the ‘Daily Stoic’, which gives you bite-sized learnings from the classics of Stoic philosophy. YouTube shorts are like short reels on Instagram - they’re quick, snappy videos that are designed to keep you scrolling for more.

‘How To Find Enough With Stoicism’ talks about a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller (author of Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five). They were at a party hosted by a billionaire, where Vonnegut teases Heller that the billionaire made more money in a week than both his books would make in his lifetime.

“But I have something that he doesn’t have,” Heller says. “I have some idea of what enough is. I have enough.”

I replayed it over and over that morning. If it was on a cassette tape, the stereo would have surely eaten it by then. “If you don’t have an idea of what is enough, the goal posts will always shift.” Those words looped around in my head all day. At night. Then again the next day.

What is enough, and how will I know when I have it? Honestly, I didn’t have an answer for that until I met up with my friend Travis recently.

Own your awesome and work to your strengths

I don’t remember my first day of school, but I still have memories of being in Ms Nagit’s class. She must have been in her early thirties (adults all look older when you’re a kid, right?), usually dressed in a corporate two piece with heels that would echo as she paced the classroom. Ms Nagit was my last teacher in the Philippines before we moved to New Zealand and it wasn’t until I started teaching dance and TEFL that I realised how much of a profound influence being in her class had on my internal tapes.

My sister and I went to Dominican School, a private Catholic school in Manila. A quick Google tells me the uniform hasn’t changed much since we went there in the eighties - it always reminded me of something out of the Sailor Moon cartoon I used to watch as a kid. Even though I did enjoy going to school, based on the Philippine education standard I was at best, pretty average. On the other hand, my older sister Khristina was almost always at the top of her class.

Choose to be the energy in the room, don't adapt to it

I’ve spent the last five years in introspection, digging right down to the bedrock to make sense of the woman I was becoming. Yet lately I’ve been asked to embrace a much different energy. Last year, apart from living through a pandemic, I also had emergency surgery. I had been in severe pain for three days until my mum finally convinced me to go to see my doctor on the fourth. I didn’t go home after that, just straight to A&E. It took me out for two months - no dancing, no climbing, no hiking.

Funny things happen when you’re forced to be still. It planted a seed of thought that's just now manifesting in my world (mostly because I'm a procrastinator when it comes to these things).

I’ve been part of the waiata (singing) group at work for almost as long as I’ve worked there. Singing is something I enjoy and it’s a great way to get to know your workmates. I can sing in tune most of the time but I’ve always been more comfortable as part of the ensemble, not as a soloist. I would turn up to waiata on a Friday, and all around me I could many around me holding back. So I held back too. We mirrored each other, and for a while I felt our growth as a group stagnate.