PIN IT

photo by the beautiful Deanna Whyte

Not long ago I decided to change my life from the ground up. 

I was a good person who had done some pretty average things. I was a new mother. A traveler. A wanderer. A hopeless romantic in a loveless marriage in a village at the end of the universe. I got kicked in the teeth by life and I spent a while hiding and searching for perspective… When I woke up I realised that I was sick of being insecure. Sick of being sad and lonely and feeling like I wasn’t good enough. 

Most of all I was sick of being complacent about things that I give a shit about.

So with one little decision the Nothing New project was born. With it came a commitment to stop buying stuff I don’t need. A commitment to start connecting with real people and building community. A commitment not just to an idea but to action, a commitment to take conformity and throw it out the damn window.

I made a promise to myself a few years ago that suddenly allowed me to be free. A promise to be honest. All of a sudden I allowed myself to be raw and real and vulnerable and contradictory and passionate and awkward and all the other things that make humans totally gorgeous and awful all at once.

Sometimes it’s really uncomfortable. I’m learning to love it.

Sometimes I write about things that are hard to write. Because things that are hard to write are truths that are infinitely more important than throw rugs. Sometimes I write about every day people that are really inspiring. Because inspiring people are infinitely more incredible than a big round watch. Sometimes I write about food that you can cook in your kitchen, without fancy gadgets or expensive ingredients. Because good food is the foundation of a good community, it’s our history, it’s our road back home.

This is a place of no bullshit and no complacency. Life is colourful and messy and gorgeous and sometimes it hurts like hell and pretending that it doesn’t isn’t doing any of us any good. Sometimes to move forward you have to allow yourself to get a little messy. For any of this to change we all have to start taking some responsibility for our role in it all. For any of this to change we all have to start being a little bit more real and stop spending so much energy trying to be so damn perfect.

Look around you. Things are a little messy right now, but this is what we’ve got and it’s our responsibility to do something about it.

Isn’t it about time for a bloody revolution?