Seven years ago, I took a trip around the world with my family.
When I came home, I wrote a book about it.
Five years ago, I created a business that would pay our mortgage from wherever we were in the world.
A year ago, my mum died of cancer.
Twenty-four Sundays later, my dad joined her.
Last month, my family and I rented our house and headed off overseas for another year-long trip away.
Only this time, we are not skipping towards Disneyland.
We are not sleeping on people’s couches and booking trains in India.
We are planless.
The only itinerary we have is to be together.
To reconnect.
To hold each other tight.
The trouble with losing a parent is that you think the only person suffering is you.
Me, me, me.
But that’s not true.
The Son-in-law grieves the loss of his ally, who will never again walk through his door with a bottle of his favourite Jack Daniels and a knowing wink.
The children grieve the grandmother. The Marmar, who was there for them every minute of their growing life.
The husband, the wife.
The neighbours, the friend.
I have tried to get better. I really have.
To move on. See the light. Live for now.
The quicker the better, in my eyes.
I will do anything. Whatever it takes.
Just. Stop. Fucking. Crying.
So I planned this trip.
“We’ll call it an adventure,” I said. “A reconnecting trip.”
But as I sit here, in Paris, writing to you, I realise this is no such thing.
This is not a jolly frolic.
This is not a “let’s have one last blast as a family before you both get married and leave us.”
This is a healing journey. An exploration. This is a time to stop. Rest. Go inside. Face up to who I am now and decide how I’m going to live the next half of my life.
This email was never intended to be like this.
I thought it would be fun.
I thought I would return to my travel-blogger days and send you cheerful emails from whichever country I was in.
“Hellllooo from Greece, my lovelies!! Look how happy and perfectly fixed I am now!!”
But that’s bullshit.
And I won’t pretend. Not to you.
I have lost a part of myself.
Lost the woman I once called me.
I have lost her so deeply that I can’t speak freely in a group anymore without feeling the drench and stench of nervous sweat. Without willing my top lip to stop dancing and twitching.
I have lost a part of myself.
A part I don’t think I’ll ever find again.
And worse than that—I don’t think I want to.
A layer has been shed.
And a new skin is waiting to be worn.
I’m just not sure what that skin looks like or how it is to be worn.
What you’re about to read over the coming weeks/months/a year is an exploration.
A mission.
A quest to find out how this self-sabotaging, people-pleasing, filled with love, sometimes massively confident, mostly hugely insecure, people-loving, embarrassingly truthful woman
takes the next step in life.
Without the person, she built it all around.
Please don’t expect anything mind-blowing.
I am writing all of this from a place of learning rather than knowing.
I know nothing.
But I promise you this: whatever I discover, I will share.
Because if my instinct is right, you too need to hear these words. If not now, then in the future.
In your own time of need.
So here’s the first letter…
Paris. 7 am. Writing my email to you.
I am aware that you may have no idea where I am or what I’m doing.
Those of you who listened to the podcast will already know.
Those who didn’t: we’ve rented our house, left New Zealand, and made ourselves homeless for a year.
We are together, the four of us. Me and Brian. With my son, who is 23. And my daughter, who is 20.
This was originally intended to be a connection trip.
A way to hold and tighten what we have as a family. But I already know this will be far more than that.
As I write this, I’m in Paris for a month with my daughter, Tess.
Brian has just completed a three-week round trip around Norway with his brother and our son, Sonny.
He is now in Cornwall visiting his family.
The four of us will reconvene in Athens, where we’ll stay in Greece for a month.
The rest is to be decided.
Will this trip heal me from the hurt of both my parents’ deaths—and my own loss of identity?
I don’t know.
All In know is I need to write. Need to release.
I’m scared to send this.
I know you are. But it is necessary.
Be the help you needed, Liz.
As always, I listen to my heart when it speaks.
And today, it tells me to share these words with you.
I know I’m a bit all over the place. I am aware that this might be confusing to you.
But so is life.
And that’s how we live it.
How can it be?
I am here, in the city of love, surrounded by millions of people
And still.
Still. I feel so desperately alone.
Me and my beautiful girl
The thing with grief is—it doesn’t warn you.
One minute you’re fine. Paddling around in the clear, shallow waters, wearing your water wings just in case, and then—
Whoosh.
A fuck-off wave that could flatten a city.
The dream
She came to me in my dream last night, telling me she couldn’t remember where she’d put her phone.
She was wearing her denim drainpipe jeans, and her hair was auburn.
Not dyed. Auburn.
She said she hated my sister.
I said, Don’t say that, Mum.
And she said, It’s true, Lizzie. She’s a selfish cow.
And that’s when I knew it was her.
The true her.
Not the her I fabricate in my mind.
Not the her I remember through rose-tinted glasses.
Not the her I imagine was so very, truly perfect.
She didn’t mince her words, my mum. She was unpredictable and fiery.
Embarrassingly, as she got older, her outspoken I-couldn’t-give-a-flying-fuck-what-people-think attitude got worse.
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve sat in a café together, my toes aching with cramp from repetitive scrunching.
Last night was no different.
She came with her feathers ruffled. Pissed off. Spitting frustrations about her youngest daughter.
And that’s when I knew it was her.
When I woke, I put my head into the pillows and sobbed like a child.
Freely.
Because there was no Brian beside me to worry.
I miss you. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. Please come back. Please come back. Please come back and bring the old me with you.
I tried to return to the dream. To see her again.
But she was gone.
Strolling down the street clutching her fags and her phone.
Her legs looking fabulous in those tight cosmic jeans.
Last night I argued with Tessa
A piece of three-day-old onion skin lay on the kitchen floor of our rented apartment. She asked why it was still there. She said that I was supposed to hoover it up.
I said No, you’re the one who should clean the floor. You’re the child—you should be looking after me.
And she said, No, you should clean the onion skin up. You’re the adult—you should be looking after me.
The pink, papery skin stayed put.
Enjoying the attention.
Relishing the fuss.
It rolled gently along the skirting board, danced across the dirty tiles towards the adjacent bathroom door, collecting dust and hair along the way.
Tumbling effortlessly in air that was heated.
Don’t bring me into it, I’m confused enough as it is. Am I even a vegetable or a fruit??
Afterwards
After dinner, we were fine.
We watched season two of The Crown on her laptop. She put her head on my lap and I stroked and smoothed her hair that’d been pulled back in a bun all day—her beautiful attempt to look chic in Paris.
The smell on my hands was divine.
They should make a perfume called Your Own Child’s Head.
It would sell out in minutes.
When we kissed goodnight, I looked into her young, twenty-something eyes—eyes the colour of mine.
And I saw how I feel.
Fragile.
I want to be told what to do.
I want to be told where to go.
I want to be told what to eat.
I want someone else to pick up the onion skin.
And so does she.
I miss Brian.
Brian is in Cornwall.
Surrounded by family.
And I am in Paris.
Surrounded by strangers.
With a daughter who is wobbly and who needs a strong, normal mother.
A stoic mother.
A mother I can’t seem to find.
A mother who exists only in my dreams.
Wearing denim drainpipe jeans and a frown.
Thank you for listening.
Always authentically yours
Liz x
Quote that both inspires and confuses me:
“I’m not who I was, and I’m not yet who I will be.” – Zadie Smith
You have just read:
You have just read an essay that I first shared with my Front Row readers. If you would like to join me and thousands of other wonderful souls whom I call my close friends, it would be an honour to have you.
Please sign up below. I look forward to getting to know you.
My book: The Travel Bog Diaries is here.
The latest podcasts episode: Brian went to Norway. Here’s what happened.
x
