Much to my Mumma’s dismay, for as long as I can possibly remember I have always, always been a night owl at heart and while that may well be due to the sheer amount of adventure that has been known to happen past the hours of 10:00pm, I believe it to be in the most part, due to the soft and subtle changes that seem to happen to the world, the very moment that first sign of darkness creeps in.

While not everyone may be willing to openly admit to such powerful truths, I think we can all agree that something magical happens once the sun has disappeared into the darkness and we are yet again, at one with the universe. Almost instantly, even our highest of walls are miraculously torn down and sure enough, there in the safety of the darkness we are able to seek comfort in one another.

Suddenly, we are overwhelmed not only by the feeling of freedom, but by the innate desire to share even our deepest of secrets with anyone who is kind enough to listen.

Suddenly, in the depths of darkness we are able to realise that the barriers we once thought to be separating us from one another are in fact entirely non existent and instead, we are perhaps closer than we ever have been before.

Suddenly, the world that seemed to be all so familiar appears to have changed dramatically, right there in front of our very eyes and while instincts may have lead us to hide from the truth in the sheer light of day, the moment the moon returns to fill the sky, those carefully hidden truths tend to escape all on their own.

Suddenly, all reasons to hide are lost and our true self appears, somewhat fleetingly, for anyone who is lucky enough to catch a glimpse.

Suddenly the world becomes a sanctuary of spilled secrets and while some of us may prefer the light of the morning, the sparkle of the sunrise and the hope of a new beginning; personally I prefer the dead of the night, the truth that escapes us and the curiosity that follows. I prefer undeniable honesty and the way that ironically, it’s the beauty in the darkness that unwillingly gives us the courage to bravely bare the light of our souls.

While most people in life seem to have things somewhat backwards in my opinion, choosing to follow the beliefs in their head rather than the desires of their heart, I have always remained quite the opposite.

For as long as I can remember I have been the girl who has relentlessly followed her heart, regardless of the circumstance and for the most part, the outcome has remained in my favour. This time around however, things appear to be entirely different.

I suppose you could say that ironically enough, life has thrown me the perfect curve ball and given that they are an obvious weakness of mine, not only am I currently struggling to read the curve, but I am struggling to remain patient.

Compliments of a few rather large life lessons, I am beginning to think that perhaps in this instance my head truly does know best and for the sake of the bigger picture, perhaps temporarily disregarding the desires of my heart will reap bigger rewards than that of the alternative. Although as I am sure you are already aware, theory and practice are two very, very different things; yet another little life lesson which coincidentally enough, I am only just beginning to learn.

To put it simply, trying to explain a logical decision of that magnitude to an already fragile heart is proving to be slightly difficult to say the least and attempting to embrace the process is not always as easy as it may first seem.

At the end of the day, how do you choose to follow the path which you believe to be the most logical, when matters of the heart constantly defy all logic?

How do you put aside the strongest of emotions and continue to move forward, simply because the distant yet convincing voice inside your head tells you to do so?

How do you attempt to trust your instincts when in doing just that, you are consequently contradicting everything you have ever known?

How do you try and figure out just what it is that you actually want in this wild and crazy world when even your deepest desires appear to have ravelled themselves into an oversized ball of confusion, changing almost as rapidly as the numbers on the clock?

The answer; you don’t figure it all out or at least not in the beginning. You simply do your best to embrace the roller coaster and attempt to sort through that big ball of confusion, one varying possibility at a time; hoping that at some point, whilst figuring out just what it is that you don’t want, you eventually begin to realise just what it is that you do want.

After all at the end of the day, when it comes to matters of the heart we never really have quite as much control as we may choose to believe and despite our very best efforts, some things in this world are completely out of our control and ironically enough, I believe that love and the way in which it finds us, is one of those very things.

As you are all well aware, for the longest time I have believed that the defining moment would be when I finally stepped back out there on that diamond proudly wearing the number thirteen, dressed from head to toe in the beautiful colours of maroon and white. However after the weekend that has just passed, it would seem that perhaps my original assumptions were slightly off.

Never in a million years would I ever have considered the possibility, that riding a mechanical bull would be seen as somewhat ‘crossing the finish line’ in my long road to recovery and yet ironically enough, here I am, wondering how I ever could have imagined this moment to play out differently.

Needless to say; after a wonderful night filled with smiles, laughter, dance-offs and Taylor Swift sing-a-longs, finding the courage to spontaneously ride a bull somewhere in between was certainly the sprinkles on top of an already perfect cupcake and having the pleasure of sharing that moment with countless favourites, is something that I will forever cherish.

Not only did I spend the entire night smiling until my cheeks hurt, laughing until my eyes watered and dancing up a storm until I was somewhat unable to breathe, but each and every time that I crazily jumped on that bull I did so without the slightest hesitation and even that simple factor alone was enough to change my entire world.

So while I may well have spent the rest of the week paying for the consequences of my rather courageous actions, regardless of the temporary pain that was caused by my obviously limited cowgirl experience, the overwhelming joy of finally feeling alive again in a way that I had long forgotten, was without a doubt worth every single one of those ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ bull rides.

I think it would be safe to say that instinctively speaking, our natural reaction upon realising that something is broken, be it even ever so slightly, it to immediately try and fix it. Just how we go about fixing it however can often be the hardest part of all and given that like most difficulties in life, there is no step by step instruction manual to help guide us through, perhaps the best that we can hope for is the strength to handle the situation gracefully.

Take a perfectly beating heart for example; how exactly does one fix a broken heart once the familiar rhythm of love has long lost it’s melody?

The answer, well I suppose that would depend entirely on our perspective.

Some would suggest to simply forget the past by drowning out the old rhythm with a whole new melody, almost as though the first had never happened. I however, believe wholeheartedly that regardless of it’s depth, love can never truly be forgotten and so in eagerly trying to do so, we are merely setting ourselves up for failure.

I believe that in many aspects, love is similar to that of an old favourite song; while we may tend to forget a few lyrics over time, we never quite lose the memories that go alongside the melody and nor should we.

Regardless of the circumstances, I believe that the melody of love was designed to be appreciated, not discarded and the rhythm was created to be remembered, not buried and while the pain may well never fully disappear, eventually it will begin to ease and eventually the tears will be replaced with smiles. Bittersweet smiles at times no doubt, but smiles nonetheless.

I believe that where love is concerned, nothing can ever remain broken forever. All we ever really need is a little courage to face each day, a little strength to continue moving forward and more than likely, a little more time to heal.

A little more time to breathe.

A little more time to cry.

A little more time to reflect.

A little more time to find our feet.

A little more time to find the courage to fall into our own rhythm again.

A little more time to rediscover our own melody and fall in love with a sound that this time around, is uniquely our own.

A little more time to remember what it feels like to be complete again, without constantly searching for that missing piece of the puzzle.

A little more time to realise that a love lost does not always mean a mistake made, but rather a lesson learned.

A little more time to appreciate the value of such a lesson.

A little more time to finally realise that if it were a boy who broke it in the first place, then perhaps constantly searching for another boy to fix it is really only a temporary solution to a never ending problem.

A little more time to realise that the cure for a broken heart is not to be found in loving another, but can be found in learning to truly love ourselves.

A little more time to realise that being alone does not necessarily mean you are lonely and that being broken in no way leaves you unfixable.

A little more time to realise that while some things break unexpectedly and are never quite the same, other things break in a way that allow them to become stronger and although we cannot always control the way in which something breaks, perhaps we can control how strongly it is placed back together.

In a world so fixated on things progressing quickly, when it comes to matters of love, perhaps we have it wrong. Perhaps as far as our hearts are concerned, a little faith and a little time is all we ever really need.

Don’t be fooled though, even with time on our side chances are it won’t be easy. However with a little trust and a little patience, eventually our heart will have the strength to begin beating again entirely on it’s own and the broken pieces that we were once so sure would never fully heal, will simply be a distant memory of yet another invaluable lesson in this crazy little thing called life.

Somewhere between 1:00am and 2:00am this morning, after dancing around like an absolute idiot to a ridiculous amount of my all time favourite country songs, I realised something completely life changing.

1. I am quite possibly the world’s worst dancer.

2. Adventure is rarely something that you simply stumble upon in life.

Instead, it is something that you must be brave enough to go out and search for and whether I was high on country music or just high on life in general, I couldn’t exactly tell you. All I know is that something in the air was making me feel brave in a way that I never have before. Something was making me crave endless adventure only this time around, I finally felt ready to go out and find it.

Thinking back over it all now however, at somewhat of a more appropriate hour, I would say it’s fairly obvious that the second realisation was perhaps slightly more life changing than the first. Although in regards to this particular story, ironically enough they are both equally as relevent.

I think it would be safe to say that in the past few months my life has changed completely. Everything that I once considered to be familiar has now become just the opposite and the comfort zone that I have spent countless years building, is now basically non existent. Oddly enough though the world appears to have opened up it’s doors in a way that it never has before and while at first I was more than a little lost by it all, it seems that now I have well and truly found just what it was that I was searching for.

Compliments of a little spontaneous midnight dancing and a newfound sense of clarity, it appears as though things have now become so incredibly clear for quite possibly the first time in my life and to be perfectly honest, I could not be more excited about the memories that are yet to come.

Finally, after a lifetime of craving adventure I have found my perfect partner in crime and together, we plan to wander down our very own hand crafted ‘road towards happiness’ one crazy little baby step at a time and while we may be approaching the journey in a way that is both slightly unexpected and slightly out of the ordinary, the universe has already made it undeniably clear that we are without a doubt heading in the right direction.

Needless to say, as you can imagine pen has already been put to paper and our never ending list of adventure appears to be growing longer by the second. So now, all that is left to do is one by one begin ticking them off the list until eventually, our countless adventures have been replaced with a lifetime of memories.

Memories of a time when we no longer sat back waiting for the magic to happen, but rather chose to go out and create it ourselves. Memories of a time when the world was so blissfully beautiful that we had nothing to lose and yet everything to gain. Memories of a time when happiness was no longer something to search for, but rather something to live by. Memories of a time when we knew with absolute certainty that we were exactly where we were meant to be.