Part Ten.

It maybe that I’m a few hours deep into this hangover , or it may be the reality that tomorrow will be my last Sunday in Merthyr for a while that’s making me super emotional.

Yet I still find myself adjusting to the fact I’m one more suitcase away from moving to Dubai.

I mean if you’d asked me in May last year, “Stef where do you see yourself next year?“ I could never have imagined this move, or that mam would not be here to celebrate it with me.

Actually, when I think about it properly there would’ve been no way I would’ve moved if mam was still here and that’s the truth.

Not that Im a home bird or scared to leave my family, because I’m not really.

I guess that it just never interested me enough before. Or I didn’t believe in taking risks as much as I do now. Calculated risks of course, because my friends & family know that I’m a stickler for a plan. 🤣

& the majority of the time, I need some kind of path to be carved out for me before I’ll agree to the journey.

However other times, I can live by the “F**K IT“ & hope for the best route. I guess this move is a little bit of both.

This evening I’ve flicked through a book with messages from friends & family from my leaving party last night. The last time my family & friends filled the hall in the rugby club it was for mams funeral & this time it was for us & theres nothing more reassuring than knowing that everyone there all back me / us in this move.

It’s so humbling & fulfilling because they love me & praise me so much that they just want me to fly my little UAE wings & enjoy my life when doing so & I know that mam would’ve been the same.

She was always my little cheerleader, I remember interviewing for my current job last year & I had no idea she was ear wigging on the stairs. I only knew after I got offered the job because she was boasting about me to her friends & family saying how well she thought I did, knowing that makes it harder sometimes.

As that was just a job in Newport, & this new one’s in Dubai. She would’ve told the world about me 100 times over if they would listen long enough. I miss that. I miss her.

Snapchat is outdated I know, but I’m so grateful that nearly every day I have a reminder of mam. Mostly her & Max being silly, her talking nonsense in her own little language or me playing hell with her.

It makes me realise that at the time your taking it, you have no idea what that will mean to you one day in the future.

I also thought about something else the other day & it really hit home.

Today I am not as old as I was yesterday & I won’t be as old tomorrow as I am today.

& it got me thinking .. I need to live more in the present.

I worry about the little things, when I have no control over a situation it stresses me out, but what stresses me out today maybe irrelevant tomorrow.

& my heart may have hurt abit more yesterday, but it’s healed some way today.

That’s not to say it won’t break again tomorrow, the next day or the day after that, but all I know is what evers gone doesn’t always come back.

and that is why we must always take chances...

This next week is one I’ve been dreading. I have no clue how I will get through all of my “good byes”.

I’m the luckiest when it comes to friends, I have the BEST support network any girl could wish for which makes it all the harder to leave & probably why I’ve never gone before.

I‘m very independent, but I live my life through my friends.

The time difference in Dubai isn’t much, however the distance is quite far & that scares me. But it doesn’t scare me as much as missing out on opportunities does.

Life was meant for good friends & adventures (Stole that off my bestie , thanks Mrs King.) I’m fortunate enough to have the best of friends and one BIG adventure ahead of me, something that not many people get in a lifetime.

For now its 8 more sleeps until I get a new postcode & hopefully a tan (I am sick to the back teeth of using fake one 🤣).

Its also 8 more sleeps until Mam gets her first trip to Dubai. Having her ashes tattooed into my arm this week means that now wherever I go she is as close to my heart as she is in it & wherever I go, she comes too.

I’m excited to do things “My Way” for a change & see what the outcome is for me.

Hopefully it’s full of opportunity, luck & happiness because I’m absolutely ready for that. ✨ 🙏

P.S This is your kind reminder to take the pictures & the silly videos & save them. Photographs are snippets of precious time, because like I said above more often than not something that’s gone doesn’t always come back But a photograph can last forever ❤️