30,000 Feet Above Everything We Left Behind

A mother, a toddler, and a 12-month journey across the world — chasing sunlight, healing, and a childhood lived under open skies.

I’m writing this from 30,000 feet in the sky — somewhere between Australia and the rest of our lives.

Below me is everything familiar.

Above me is everything waiting.

And beside me is a little boy who thinks every

cloud is a piece of magic floating past his window.

This is the moment it became real.

Not when we packed the suitcases.

Not when we personalised our luggage with our names.

Not even when we handed over our passports at the airport.

It became real here, in the quiet hum of the cabin, with Leo curled into my side as the world opens beneath us.

✈️ Leaving Australia: The Weight and the Freedom

People see the highlight reel — the passports, the luggage, the boarding passes — but they rarely see the heart behind the journey.

For me, this isn’t just a holiday.

It’s a reset.

A promise.

A decision to raise my son in a world bigger than the one I grew up in.

A world where childhood is made of sunlight, oceans, cultures, languages, and memories — not just routines and walls.

I wanted Leo’s earliest stories to be lived under open skies.

I wanted him to feel the world before someone tells him what it should look like.

And I wanted to show him — and remind myself — that life doesn’t end when things fall apart.

Sometimes that’s when it finally begins.

🌏 One Mama. One Toddler. One Year Around the World.

When we boarded in Brisbane this morning, Leo pointed to the departures screen and whispered,

“Up?”

He knows.

He feels the shift — the energy of a new chapter, the excitement in my body, the promise in the air.

And here we are.

Somewhere above the ocean, flying toward:

• Singapore

• Bali

• Vietnam

• Japan

• The USA

• Europe

• Ireland

• And everywhere in between

A full year of movement, growth, learning, and becoming.

Three generations will walk this earth together.

Leo, me, and my mum — Nanny — chasing stories and sunsets across continents.

🤎 What 30,000 Feet Really Means

30,000 feet isn’t just altitude.

It’s perspective.

It’s distance from the version of me who stayed small to fit inside the life others expected.

It’s space between the woman I was and the woman I’m becoming.

Up here, everything makes sense in a way it doesn’t on the ground.

The heartbreak.

The healing.

The courage.

The choice to leave.

The choice to change.

The choice to begin again.

Up here, I can finally breathe.

🐳 For Leo

I hope one day he reads this.

I hope he knows that his mum didn’t run away — she ran toward something.

Toward growth.

Toward joy.

Toward peace.

Toward a life that feels like sunlight, not survival.

I hope he remembers the airports, the clouds, the new faces, the cultures, the food, the languages…

But more than anything, I hope he remembers the feeling:

That the world was wide and beautiful — and his mum was brave enough to show it to him.

✨ This Is Only the Beginning

When we land, a new story begins.

New cities.

New mornings.

New memories.

But for now, at 30,000 feet, I’m letting it sink in:

We did it.

We actually did it.

Australia → The World.

Chapter One begins here.