Roots and Wings — MEGAN AWAY

Apr 15

Apr 15 Roots and Wings

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend and feel well rested and ready for the week ahead! Tj and I had a lovely weekend. Saturday we went for a nice long walk and went shopping. Sunday we were back at the gym and we got some stuff done around the apartment that we've put off so all in all it was a pretty productive weekend. I hardly even read! I know… crazy right. I finished a book Friday night and I didn't even start a new one until Sunday afternoon.

Today’s post is inspired by a song I heard on the weekend called Roots and Wings by Jessie James Decker.

Here are the lyrics to the chorus:

“Roots and wings
I’m somewhere in between
Where I’m from and what I dream
What I’ve known and what I’ve seen
No matter where I go
The sky above, the ground below
My heart will have a home
Cause I got these
Roots and wings
”

This describes perfectly how I feel living abroad! I have always been such a homebody. There was one summer where my girlfriends and I talked about moving to Vancouver or Calgary together, and I’ve always liked to travel, but I never really thought about moving away from home. Even when I first moved to Toronto, I thought I’d only be there for maybe two years max. Then after four years we moved to London. And when we moved to London I said that's it, after two years I'm moving home. Except I loved it way more than I expected to and wanted to stay longer - and that's when we moved to Australia!

So my roots. My family and the dogs. The street I grew up on and the friends I've known since elementary school. It's so comforting hanging around people who just get you. When we were in Punta Cana one of my girlfriends knew my most embarrassing moment from elementary school - and she didn't even go to the same school LOL. It's how Jacob and Taylor and I can hang out and all watch something different on our phones or the tv but it doesn't irritate each other. It's that I actually really enjoy getting to spend time with my families and as I get older I hate FOMO feeling like I'm missing out on everything. It's the shelves of family pictures on my mom's wall, and the walls of family pictures at my uncle's house. My roots are the part of me really appreciate the small things like doing a puzzle with my aunt or playing cribbage all day in PEI. I am the biggest dog lover and I will never have a dog. I say it's because we live so far away and I would never want to bring a pet on a plane to go back to Canada. The truth is my heart belongs to my dogs at home and I don't want another dog that's not them. My roots ground me and let me know I always have somewhere to go and will always bring me back to my truest self.

And my wings. I have to start by saying that it's my roots that give me the strength to spread my wings. Without the support of all my loved ones, I would not be the type to embrace getting out of my comfort zone. My mom gives me the example of family members who have passed who would've loved to travel but didn't have the means. And others who had the means but didn't have the health. Still to this day, if Tj talks about living in another country in a few years I freak out a bit. I have about a two-year attention span into the future. Anything longer than that and I don't want to even consider it. It's not necessarily that I'm not open to it, it's just that I can't process it that far into the future lol. My wings are the part of me that get itchy to see a new place and try something new. It's the part of me that loves seeing the mountains or the ocean and feeling so small. It's my minimalism and not wanting too many belongings to hold me down. My ultimate dream in life isn't to settle down back in Canada, but to earn a lifestyle where I can just have little apartments all over the world so everywhere I go feels like home. My wings gave me the courage to jump out of a plane and overcome my fear of snorkelling. It's the spark that allows me to get uncomfortable. My wings have not taught me not to be afraid of failure because I've already had to move and start fresh a few times now. My wings make me not want to waste a single moment of this amazing life.