Five Seasons in One Life

Life Lessons

When I left Brisbane at nineteen, I thought I was leaving to discover the seasons of the world.

I imagined different summers, different winters and different cultures. I thought the countries I visited would shape the stories I would one day reflect upon. Like many travellers, I believed the places were the story.

It took me more than thirty years to realise they weren’t.

When I eventually sat down to write my memoir, I thought I was preserving memories before they faded. As the manuscript slowly took shape, I realised the places themselves had never been what stayed with me. What I remembered most were the people, the conversations, the acts of kindness, the unexpected setbacks and the ordinary moments that quietly changed the direction of my life. The countries had simply provided the backdrop. The real story had always been about what happened between people.

I thought that was the greatest discovery my memoir had given me.

It wasn’t.

After publishing the book and stepping away from it for a while, another pattern quietly emerged. Every chapter that had seemed completely different while I was living it now appeared connected by the same rhythm. It wasn’t a rhythm created by countries or careers, but by the way each chapter began, matured, faded and quietly prepared the next.

Only then did I realise I had spent my life moving through four seasons without ever recognising them.

The Season of Leaving

(Spring)

Every meaningful chapter began by leaving something behind. Sometimes it was a place, sometimes it was certainty, and sometimes it was simply the version of myself that had become too comfortable. World Expo ‘88 planted the first seed that the world was much larger than Brisbane. Pancreatitis delayed that dream but never removed it. When I finally left home, I headed to the Whitsundays to discover whether the life I imagined was even possible with my illness. That confidence eventually carried me to London, where I already knew around twenty Australians. Instead of choosing familiarity, I bought a ticket to Rhodes because curiosity offered something I couldn’t yet explain. That decision introduced me to sailing, which later led towards an ocean crossing. Years later I returned to Brisbane only to discover that home itself had become unfamiliar. Looking back, every important chapter of my life began in exactly the same way. Before something new could grow, something familiar first had to be left behind.

Nature’s spring begins long before flowers appear. Beneath the surface, seeds have already begun their work. My own springs were no different. Leaving was simply the first visible sign that another chapter had already started to grow.

The Season of Living

(Summer)

Eventually every unknown became ordinary. Sailing became daily life instead of an adventure. Rugby tours became part of the calendar. Writing my memoir became work rather than an impossible ambition. These were the seasons where curiosity became experience and experience quietly became everyday life. At the time they simply felt normal, yet they were slowly becoming the stories I would later reflect upon.

Nature’s summer isn’t the season when things begin. It is the season when growth becomes visible. My own summers were the same. They weren’t about searching for what came next but fully living the chapter that curiosity had already created.

The Season of Letting Go

(Autumn)

This was always the hardest season to recognise because nothing appeared to be wrong. The Whitsundays, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and even the world of publishing all gave me exactly what I needed until, almost without noticing, curiosity slowly gave way to familiarity. The places were still beautiful, the people remained generous and the opportunities were still worthwhile, but the season had quietly offered everything it could. Years later I found the same pattern while editing and publishing my memoir. I learnt a great deal, but eventually realised I was beginning to ask the same questions as everyone else. Nothing had failed. It was simply time for another spring.

Nature’s autumn isn’t the end of life. It is the season that prepares the beginning of another cycle. My own autumns weren’t failures either. They simply arrived when curiosity had finished teaching me what it came to teach.

The Season of Waiting

(Winter)

This was the season I resisted most because waiting rarely feels like progress while you are living through it. Pancreatitis delayed the life I thought I was meant to live before it had properly begun. Visa applications interrupted journeys that seemed ready to continue. An unexpected period in a detention centre became another chapter where life appeared to stand still. Even writing my memoir carried its own winter as more than twenty years passed between imagining the book and finally becoming an author. It took time to realise that none of those winters had been empty. Each had quietly prepared the chapter that followed, even if I couldn’t see it at the time.

Nature’s winter often appears empty because so much of its work happens beneath the surface. My own winters looked exactly the same. They felt like interruptions while I was living them, yet almost every one of them was quietly preparing the spring that followed.

The Season of Noticing

(The Fifth Season)

It took writing my memoir, publishing it and then stepping away from it before I realised there was a fifth season.

The first four are seasons of living. They are experienced one day at a time and rarely recognised while we are moving through them. The fifth is different. It doesn’t replace the others. It reveals them.

I had to discover a fifth season before I could identify the first four.

Only then could I see that the countries had changed, the people had changed and the adventures had changed. Even the ideas that would later become Socialising Equality, Fakaging and The Gift of Eight Guilt-Free Hours had grown from completely different chapters of my life. They weren’t discoveries made while I was living those moments. They only became visible once I stepped back and began noticing the pattern that connected them all.

Beneath all those changes, however, the same rhythm had quietly repeated itself again and again.

The Season of Leaving.

The Season of Living.

The Season of Letting Go.

The Season of Waiting.

The Season of Noticing.

When I left Brisbane at nineteen, I thought I was travelling to discover the seasons of the world. Instead, I spent more than thirty years living through four seasons before discovering a fifth. Only then could I finally identify the first four.