Week 52: And above all, have hope
The final story in the #myvoyagehome series
When I started writing in week 0, 52 weeks felt like a long way off — “Will we ever get there?”. But here we are, the ship at the dock, finally at the end of this year-long series of stories on #myvoyagehome.
What began as an attempt to document the year I finally journeyed home turned into a ritual, a place and time where I had the opportunity to process and reflect on the occurrences in life, and how I responded to them.
“And yes, in the philosophical sense, words are never quite the thing they describe, but that is also their use. They can help externalise internal things… Once we take our personal unseen experiences and make them seen, we help others, and even ourselves, to understand what we are going through. What we say aloud can never quite capture what we feel inside, but that is almost the point.
Words don’t capture, they release.“ — Matt Haig, The Comfort Book
Throughout the year, I’ve explored what it means to begin again, to face my fears, to make choices. I’ve sought to let go of COVID grief, of the chase for perfection, and learnt to embrace the discomfort brought on by the unknown. And, unknowingly, these stories became fragments of topics and thoughts that, when pieced together, formed a mosaic, a sea of colours through which my humble ship journeyed through.
But as I look back, I realise, the one theme that was common throughout, the thread that linked them all together, was hope. Beginning again, facing your fears, making choices, dealing with grief, welcoming imperfection, embracing the unknown… these, to some extent, all required a level of hope. And whilst having hope doesn’t guarantee you will know how things will turn out, it does help you get through the times when you do not know how things will turn out.
“But hope is not about knowing how things will turn out — it is moving forward in the face of uncertainty.” — Austin Kleon, Keep Going
As I close off this series and as we look forward to the new year, I hope you’ve found, in these stories, something to resonate with, some sort of inspiration, or some form of hope; just as they have guided me through both rough seas and calm water on this journey home.
I don’t know what may come next. But just as it were at the beginning of the journey, I am excited, I am hopeful, and I am ready.
Thank you for coming along with me on my voyage home.
I packed up 8 years of my life in Melbourne in December 2021 to move to Singapore to be closer to home and also to explore the world outside of what I already knew. This is a year-long series of reflections on #myvoyagehome. Thank you for being a part of my journey.
