Life’s Great Leap

I love the concept of reflecting on personal growth over leap years… 10 or even 5 years seems a little too distant, and 1-2 years seems too short to get that kind of feeling that you've just been transported through space and time at lightspeed but nothings moving… if you know what I mean?

So 4 years feels about right, a lot can happen in 4 years…

Leap Years

Currently, in 2024 I have a great job (maybe not my dream job) but it is a job that has enabled me to say yes to opportunities and yes to my dreams. I'm in the supportive loving relationship I had always hoped for, I smile when I look in the mirror and we live in a beautiful home that I could spend so much time in.

In 2020 I was single and I had just started getting my confidence back, I was so stressed from the job I didn't even like, and I was secretly glad that I was "forced" to stop partying because I was 10kg bigger than I am now.

In 2016 I had finished university and finally accepted that I didn't have enough money to go travelling or the insight to figure out how to earn it if I did. I had no job opportunities and no money.

2012 was wild and reckless, and in 2008 I was still in school.

The thing is in 2008 I had no idea where I would be in 2012, I'm not even sure I considered it. In 2012 I didn't know I would finish uni in 2016 (I kept changing my degree around), in 2016 I sure as anything couldn't predict 2020, and even in 2020 with all my journaling and dreaming I couldn't comprehend how great my life would be in 2024.

What's interesting though is what happened between these years to get me to these points, because a leap is not where you start and it is not where you end it is what happens in the middle.

The Leaps

Between 2008-2012 after finishing school, I not only went travelling on my own for the first time but flew to the other side of the world (Europe) for the first time (as an adult). Lasted four months before coming back and starting uni.

Between 2012-2016 I went travelling overseas on my own again, for almost a year this time, living in various places, travelling to multiple continents and meeting up with friends I had made during the previous leap years. I also had dreadlocks and shaved off all my hair in this time.

Between 2016-2020 I started on a career path where I found myself being promoted in less than a year to a role that had more pressure, expectations and responsibilities than I had ever experienced. This was the kind of promotion that makes you nauseous not excited, but like with all the other opportunities I said yes.

Between 2020-2024 I said yes to a job that required me to relocate to a state that was not letting anyone from my state in. So I packed up my life, moved states passing through quarantine not knowing when or if I would see my boyfriend again, at this point we had only been dating for one month…so when after 6 months I saw him again, we had spent more time apart then together…and just to really highlight how crazy this was of me to make this leap… I had been single for 10 years and I was finally in a relationship that I wanted for so long, I was making the biggest move of my life… and I didn't even know where would live when I got there….

These are all significant leaps I made in my life, leaps of courage, leaps of curiosity, leaps of adventure, leaps of tenacity and leaps of growth all in the name of possibility, opportunity and experience.

Because the thrill of life is in the jump, and as long as I prepare myself for the leap, and practice landing as gracefully as I know how. Then when I do leap I will enjoy the view knowing I can trust myself and my decisions.

Practice Landing

What I have also realised with these reflections is that based on my personal patterns and cycles of life, the leap year is not the year I leap, it is the year I prepare for the leap. It is more often the year that looks like nothing is happening while at the same time, everything is happening.

There's something peaceful about realising that some years are not meant to be big years they are the preparation for the big years so that when we do jump to fly we can land and jump again even further and even higher.

Something I came to understand while attempting to learn parkour a few years back, is that landing is actually the most important part of a jump, because how you land will depend on where you jump, and the best way to practise landing is by jumping.

I’m curious about the next leap year but I’m not in any rush, I know I will get there and just like every other leap year I will wonder how in the world I got here in only 4 years.

These reflections became clear after watching the Great Leap Masterclass by Melanie Ann Layer of Alpha Femme xx