I was lucky I guess. I had an amazing family growing up. I had everything. Well, not everything I ever wanted, we weren’t super rich, but we weren’t poor either. I grew up in the country. I had a yard to play in, I had enough clothes to wear, I could go to the movies and out bowling. We had dinner on the table every night. I had parents who loved me, and I had an older brother to teach me.
But there was always something I felt was missing. It was like there was a hole inside me that I could never fill up. I was searching for something that would make my life mean something, make me feel ‘whole’ I think is the best way to explain it.
I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong
I was always shy, and I wasn’t able to talk with people easily, which meant I didn’t have many friends. I loved baking and cooking, but I also enjoyed eating. I’d always reach for food as a way to try and fill up that hole, to try and make the emptiness go away. And it would sometimes help. Just for a moment, I would forget it was there. I’d feel I was in the right place. But then that moment would pass, and I would feel a sad longing to be happy and to feel like I belonged. So I’d eat to try and fill the gap. I’d also distract myself by watching movies and reading magazines, looking at photos of beautiful people, always feeling like I wasn’t enough; I wasn’t pretty enough; I wasn’t thin enough.
Then I started distracting myself with other things. I got a university degree and got a job, throwing myself into my career as a restaurant manager. I felt like I was helping people in my own way and I became excellent at it. I put everything into it and ended up running a very well known establishment in my hometown that people would fly in from all over Australia to dine in. But that didn’t complete the void either.
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I got into a relationship because that would be ‘it’, right? Like in the fairy tales, the stories you read growing up where the girl finds her prince and lives happily ever after? Finding a partner would fill me up. So, after three years, after getting engaged, after buying a house together, I didn’t understand why I still didn’t feel right. Every now and then I would kid myself that I was happy and fulfilled, but there was always some part of me, in the back of my head that was crying out saying ‘There’s more to life than this’. I decided to end the relationship and find out who I was on my own. So I went back home to live with mum and dad, which at 30 years of age, had not been a life goal.
Soon after, I quit my job, and it was at that point I realised I was really lost. I felt like I didn’t know how to do life. Or, I didn’t know how to do my life. I thought I’d done all the right things up to this point. I’d travelled, got engaged, bought a house, got a uni degree. So, why didn’t I feel whole? Why was there still this emptiness inside of me?
Why don’t I just Google all the answers?
You know, I went online once, and searched for me. I typed in my name. I typed in my height, my weight, my date of birth, my parent’s names, where I was born, my qualifications. I wrote everything into the search, because Google has all the answers, right? But when typed in my details and asked Google ‘How I can fill up this hole?’, Google came back with a failed search, ‘No results found’.
I didn’t have the resources to know who I really was and it was at that point that I got lucky. You know those moments when you do something that is so out of character. You look back, and you go ‘Who was that?’ ‘How did I know to do that at that moment?’ What happened was, I went up to somebody who I had never met before, and who I didn’t know but who stood out to me. I tapped him on the shoulder and said: “You don’t know me but whatever you are doing, keep doing it because I think it will help people.” And in return, he gave me the best gift; he gave me the gift of his time. I didn’t realise then, but I used to take time for granted. I let it pass by, watching movies and TV, sleeping, staying in and trying to fill a void with food and other things. Not that any of that is a problem in moderation, but that’s how I was filling my days.
So this person sat down with me asked “What’s your story?” And you know those times when you feel so comfortable with somebody quickly? So I told him.
I opened up and shared
I told him about how I’d been sad for many years. I shared how every time I went to see a psychologist, they seemed to ask me to go back and relive the same moments, again and again, ones I didn’t enjoy when I was living them the first time around. And I told him how I felt I had this hole inside of me that I didn’t know how to fill. The next thing he asked me was, “What are you willing to do about it?” “Whatever it takes!” I heard myself reply, which shocked me because I didn’t think I had it in me. In the past, I would have always looked for the easy solution, but this time, I chose to trust. It was uncomfortable, but I knew I had to do something, because I knew keeping on going the way I was, wasn’t going to work.
Life can be difficult, but if I was going to start filling up that hole, then I had to learn how to do it myself. I had to learn the tools to understand myself and be able to change what wasn’t working whenever I needed to. So in that moment of trusting somebody who wasn’t interested in giving me quick solutions, the smallest filling dropped into that hole, and stayed there. The more I trusted, the more that empty space shrunk, to the point that now there is no longer a hole.
I’ve learnt that life isn’t perfect, and it’s not always easy, but I certainly know how to enjoy every moment, and bring fun to every situation. I can face the challenges that come up for me, and I have the gift of appreciating time. Now I know how to enjoy each moment. So if you feel like there’s a hole inside of you that you don’t yet know how to fill, keep looking, and you will find a way.