Goodbye Gemini, Hello Hubba Hubba

And so we returned back home. Or at least home for me. The sister and I have been away for the past couple weeks and it feels like a lifetime has been and gone since I last set foot in my home. She's been visiting from Canada. For Christmas. 5.5 weeks of awesomeness.

Our last two weeks was planned as an adventure exploring the famous Abel Tasman and surrounding area. Ferry booked, rental car organised and two packs crammed full of camping gear - we were set. I just didn't expect my tent to fall to pieces in the process.

Camping in daisy fields - British Columbia

I knew my tent was on it's last legs when I pulled it out to make sure it was ready to go for our holiday. It was the tent I had gotten years ago in Canada when I first starting doing backcountry camping. My first tent. It had all my first memories of heading off to the bush with nothing but the gear on my back. It got me across British Columbia - 7 weeks of just me and the Canadian wilderness as I walked from Banff to Vancouver.

When I knew I was to walk New Zealand, I had that tent shipped to Australia. I used it there while I lived at a local campground in Broome, WA. It was home for 2 months while I did final preparation work for Te Araroa Trail. And then I brought it to New Zealand.

The first major rain storm in New Zealand left me with the realization that my MEC Gemini 3-season tent had started to reach the end of it's life. It had lost all of it's waterproofing function and much like a bad rainjacket is useless in the wet, waking up in a puddle from water seeping up from the ground was even more annoying. At the time Alex and I were forced to fork over a few hundred to get a new tent for our adventure.

Since then my Canadian tent has sat waiting in storage. Waiting for the day that I would finally take it out again and invest a bit of time and money into re-waterproofing its fabric. A couple weeks ago that day finally arrived. I set it up during one of Wellington's glorious sunny days and got about spraying my tent with waterproofer. When it had fully dried, I took off the fly only to find that the velcro strips that had attached the fly to the tent poles had worn out their glue and popped off, falling to the ground like a tree loses its leaves. I tried to ignore the fact that my tent was literally starting to fall apart.

On it's last legs - note the tarp through the "window"

It was at our first campsite on route to Nelson that I began to accept that maybe my tent wouldn't last the next couple weeks, let alone another season of camping. As the sister and I set it up, I noticed that one of the windows had started to come away from the fly. It was just a simple piece of plastic glued to the fly of the tent in a triangle shape that allowed more light into the tent and the ability for me to spy on everything from the inside - but they had hung on for years. Until now. The gap between the piece of plastic and the fly mocked me as though the tent was daring me to try and fix it. We gave it our best shot - sort of.

A few minutes later and a lot of bandaides, plastic bags and sports tape later, we had resealed the window. Just as we posed for a photo to show our accomplishment for the day, the tape started to peel away. All we could do was compensate by adding a tarp to the mix and cross our fingers that if rain came that we wouldn't be washed away with the mess of it all.

By the time we got to the next campsite, both windows literally fell out of their holes. We attached the tarp under the fly, but each time the wind got strong, a corner would blow off its peg and flap against the tent.

I had no choice but to fork over the money for a new tent.

The new tent in all its glory

My purchase of the MSR Hubba Hubba tent has been something I have dreamed about for years. It has been a tent I have lusted after for as long as I can remember and I was finally in a position to not just need it, but also have the money to get it. And yet my excitement was tainted by the fact that my getting a new tent was because the old one had finished its days of providing me shelter while in the great outdoors.

Everything about my old tent is ingrained in my memory. It was one of the few possessions in my life that I truly feel sentimental about. Much like people feel about getting rid of their first car, first apartment, first love - I have felt that way about my blue and yellow tent. The nights I have spent sleeping there, hiding out from the rain or simply living my life because I was too cheap to get more structured accommodation are more than I can count.

The memories I have had in there - it was the tent that gave me the freedom to explore the backcountry. It was the tent that made me feel safe when it was dark, cold or the threat of wild animals was near. It was the tent that inspired me to take on the challenge of Te Araroa Trail. It featured in many of my travel photos and even in the promotional video done for walking New Zealand. It was the tent I carried on my back for weeks on end. It was my sanctuary. And now it is gone.

I threw my old one in the trash the day before we came back to Wellington and it was bittersweet. It was sad. And yet I felt a new thrill of hope and wonder for what will be with my new tent. At the very least I can rest assured that wherever it takes me I will stay dry without fear of any windows falling out.

A Picture Says a Thousand Words - Sometimes I Wish They'd Stop Talking to Me

Lately I have been so busy being bogged down with being "in the moment" that I have lost sight of where I have come from and what that means for where I want to go. This past year has been filled with many ups and downs for me - for each moment of celebration and happiness there has been an equally devastating moment eager to suck the air from my lungs. It hasn't been an easy year, but I feel that it has been one to make me stronger... even more so than walking the length of New Zealand ever did.

Today I took a moment to reflect on exactly all that I have done - not just this past year, but as far back as what my Facebook photos would allow me to time-travel. All of a sudden I found myself overcome with such a fullness in my heart... a fullness for all the experiences I have had. All the friends I made. All the places I have seen. All the laughter had. All the life lived.

What surprised me the most was that a majority of the photos captured I remembered when they were taken. And I remembered forcing myself (many, many times) to post them on Facebook. I remember forcing myself to ignore how I thought my hair wasn't quite right. To pretend I didn't see just how "big" my thighs looked or how my face appeared wider in comparison to everyone else in the shot. For as long as I can remember, I have always struggled with accepting myself for who I am and being okay of the way I look. And now as those moments have passed and years have gone by, I am able to look at the photos and not critique everything about me... not because that part of me has changed, but because it is far enough in the past that I no longer feel twinged by feelings of shame over my body from that moment in time.

Now that those moments have past, all I see is the smile that reaches my eyes. The laughter I can hear still lingering in the air. The gorgeous surroundings and how - no matter how I try - I can't say anything bad about the person I see reflected in the photos. That person is me. Those moments captured on camera have brought me to where I am today and it forever amazes me to where life has taken me.

And so as this year comes to a close and the next one opens up to a promise of starting anew yet again, I find myself faced with a resolution. A resolution that I learn to accept me for me. Not just who I am as a person - but what I look like at any camera angle. Because 5 years from now when I look back on the photos I take today, everything I find annoyingly hideous won't be noticeable to my eyes. And so it's not worth the mental angst to stress about it now. When I take the time to think about it, I figure I am already a pretty awesome version of myself and trying to reach invisible expectations is simply a waste of my time. I'd rather be celebrating the good times with more photography.

With that in mind, I think it is so incredibly important for all of us to start seeing the beauty of ourselves - regardless of our age, gender or size. For we are all beautiful because of our imperfections, not without them. It is a shame that we can spend so much time idolizing each other in a wrath of green envy on Facebook (though it can take a while for us to admit we do such a thing) when in reality we should be proud of the accomplishments, events and photos of ourselves we post on Facebook and other social media sites. Those sites are essentially a way to market yourself as a "brand," but why do we get so obsessed with making our brand an ideal of what we think we should be rather than just being ourselves?

Anyway - with that rant over and done with, I do hope that I will be able to make more of an effort in my own life to accept the way I look now... not wait for when I get those perfectly toned abs, slim down my legs or tilt my head in just the right way so the camera can capture my face with a slimmer perspective - there's too much going on in life to be worried about such things as it only makes me regret that I didn't fully enjoy those moments I was living as I couldn't appreciate me for me until years later when I was able to face the photos again.