Once upon a time there was a girl. She was a mixed up, confused and confuddled little girl, quite a stubborn, independant thing, with a fierce survival instinct and a will to succeed, whatever the odds. (Sometimes she thought, she was just like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead; when she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid. Except her curl was to the left of her forehead). :)
Anyhow, this girl had been through a rather torrid couple of years. Basically, it hadn't been good. And her survival instinct had come under threat. She had started to doubt herself, and the world around her. She didn't relate to it anymore and often she wondered why she was trying so hard to survive, the world didn't deserve the effort. But survive she did.
And then the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were. And she decided to run. Because there had to be some place in the world, where she could fit in, could get back in touch with herself and with life itself.
And like the tornado that swept Dorothy away to Oz, our heroine packed all her wordly goods away into storage, booked her ticket and flew to a land far far away. Her yellow brick road took her first to Bangkok, the wicked witch of the East, and onto Koh Phangan, Ananda and Detox, where the wise wizard foretold that all wicked influences could be 'let go' with the help of just a straw (or in our heroine's case, a magic rubber tube).
In her quest to find herself, our heroine realised that she had a brain, a heart and shed-loads of courage all along. She didn't need to find the Emerald City to get the answers, they were always there inside her.
And so, after her mini-adventure, she put on her magic slippers (supplied by the luxurious hotel suite), clicked her heels together three times, and uttered the magic words 'there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home...' And of course, because this isn't MGM technicolour, she had to wait until next day to take the Jet Airways flight via Mumbai but give it 24 hours or so, and she would be home.
Or rather, Vanessa's home. Our heroine still needs to get one of her own, and a job to pay for it. But with renewed heart, brain and courage, there ain't no stopping her now!
Thank you for reading. Here endeth the blog. :) I'll be seeing you all very soon, a little earlier than planned. But, to (badly) paraphrase Harry from the end of when Harry met Sally; when you realise what you want in the future, you run to make sure your future can start as soon as possible.
