Saturday, February 15, 2025 – Well, I did it! Got to the end of the overwhelming lists! Hopefully I don’t have any surprises when I get unpacked!
My flight was with Fiji Airways from San Francisco to Nadi, Fiji with a 5-hour layover then I’ll hop on another Fiji Airways flight to Auckland, New Zealand.
I will be in Auckland for about five days, and will meet up with Fern, my sister, and her husband Larry. We will explore Auckland and the surrounding area until the cruise ship embarks to adventures around both the North and South Islands. When the cruise ends in Sydney, we will go different directions. They will spend some time in Fiji before returning home, and I will stay in Australia for a couple of weeks to explore the highlights of my 7th Continent.
The ‘flashback ’
When I was 20 and very unsettled, I had failed university and watched many of my local friends get married and have a kid or two or were planning to start a family. While they were happy, I just couldn’t see that for myself at the time in my life. I was working as a receptionist and typist at the Oregon Secretary of State office during the week and at my family’s hardware store on weekends. Defeated, bored, restless, unmotivated and no idea what to do with my life. Hard following successful siblings who graduated from university, seemingly easily, and have already started their careers, when I couldn’t even pass US History 101.
So my then boyfriend and I developed a plan to move to Oahu. Run away from the small towns in which we had achieved adult age without tools and skills to become adults, and try something new for a while. He stayed about four months, got his old job back and went back to Oregon. I decided to stay… I had a job as a receptionist for a construction company in the tallest building in Honolulu and made enough to survive — barely.
We eventually broke up, and later I started casually dating a cute guy, Fred, whose close-knit Fijian family welcomed me with open arms and hearts. I experienced the true spirit of the Polynesian cultures —
warm, accepting and loving. The young people stayed in the family home until they married, and the parents were endlessly supportive of their dreams. It was fun for a while, until it was time to return home to Oregon. I decided on a direction and learned to embrace it—it took a while, but I finally became a bit more grounded, got an associates degree and a job that turned into a long career. I was able to follow my dreams to become a Mom, live financially independently, have a successful marriage and explore the world.
When I stepped onto the plane last night, the cabin crew greeted me warmly with big smiles in their beautiful Fijian native dress, so friendly and welcoming, reminding me of my time living in Honolulu. For a short moment I was transported back to age 20, living my runaway dream and wondering whatever happened to Fred?
Travels with Nance 