People always ask me what advice I would give my 20 year old self and I have never really known how to answer.
Then, one balmy afternoon, while I sat listening to Ibiza Sonica, in my own rocky little cove, icy cold water splashing over my legs, it came to me.
I always knew that ultimately I didn’t want to live in the U.K.
When I was a little girl I never saw the point in going back to England after a long summer in France. When we got back my Dad would travel far and wide trying to find bread that even slightly resembled the crunchy, crispy, baguettes we had eaten for breakfast each day. He had ‘ Le Monde’ delivered to us from France to keep a small part of the sunflower filled fields and ice cold rosé on blisteringly hot afternoons with him on cloudy English afternoons. I just thought it would all be easier if we hadn’t left in the first place.
As I got older and started working I loved when I would get sent on jobs or placements over seas. No matter how distant or obscure the location I loved every second . Even at the height of my modelling career I would take any tiny little job for any equally tiny little budget if it meant working somewhere a little more tropical than England.
Saving money, building a business, all the time with one goal in mind, buying my dream home in Ibiza.
I always dreaded the flight back to the U.K. I would have a weird knot in my stomach and a heavy, grey cloud around me I couldn’t seem to shake (quite literally in some cases 😂).
All this time spent away from where my heart was, trying to make enough money to buy my perfect house on my perfect island. All this time I could have been living there already. I had convinced myself I needed the perfect villa to be happy, but in reality I could have the best day ever going for a long walk to my favourite beach, with nothing more than a bottle of water and a sandwich in my bag. Happiness was finding a rocky little nook next to the water to sit and listen to my podcasts in. It was beach hopping and grabbing a beer in a chiringuito on the way. It was seeing the sun set for the millionth time with your friends.
Being where I feel most myself has been so powerful to me. It seems like such a stupid oversight not to realise that going to where I was happiest was the logical first step. That that was the place to start building.
My advice to 20 year old me (and maybe 20 year olds reading this), is to get yourself to where you want to be and start your journey from there. If you have a roof over your head and food on your plate it doesn’t matter what you are doing for work you will be content.
Doing it the other way around doesn‘t make any sense and I have no idea why it took me so long to see that.
Good luck and see you in Spain!