IT'S TIME TO SEARCH

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.
~Alan Alda

Deciding to share my own journey with the world rather than the traditional diary entries of bonded paper felt more appropriate. The reasons why is not possible for myself to explain. I suppose deep down I'm hoping that I'm not the only one on earth who is on the verge of self discovery.

Migrating to Australia at the age of four for a better education and living, my parent's had instilled both the Tongan and Australian traditions/values and one I've gladly adopted and accepted as my own.

Born into a Tongan family, with traditions that go as far back as some ridiculous century. Most of the family and Tongan history including my family tree is told by stories passed on from one generation to another, in which my family tree can be traced back to Irish and English Descendants.

Struggling with my own identity is a different issue all together. I'm now twenty seven and according to my Tongan background I'm categorised as heading on too old to be married - "You know you should be thinking about marriage now, it's the next level in life. You've had your fun, now it's time to settle down" or "Your sister is younger than you and she's married". But have I? Am I really missing out? Living in Australia getting married at thirty-five is almost considered the norm in my perspective. Things have changed, times have changed, yet the family traditions haven't. So does that make me less Tongan? Or as they call me from time to time in my language 'Palangi Loi'. Pretending to be a foreigner/westerner. So if I'm neither a 'Westerner' nor 'Tongan', then who am I? I feel like I'm a foreigner to my own family as I start to question values and traditions, but at the same time I see a huge question mark hovering above my head when I look at my reflection.

So I've planned to go on a road trip for a month. This road trip would be done next year in the States. I wanted to explore. Not just physically explore the beautiful vast landscape of U.S.A, but mentally explore just who am I, without 'outside' influences correcting or fitting me in a category. I just want to be me and who that person is I'll find out. It's time.