Welcome to Helen Place.

The street sign Helen Place is about as close as anyone can get to the actual Helen-Space-Place at the moment. I’ve gone through a wonderful moment in life where everything is changing, growing and morphing around me. I’ve noticed that every 8 years there’s a seeming significant life shift. Between my birth becoming the feisty 8 year old I once was a lot changed; I found a love of animals, discovered my voice (not singing but verbal) and lived with my head inside a book. Eight years later and the sixteen year old in front of you would of been a seemingly wholly different Helen, I was trying to find my identity, I had recently started doing Yoga and went through a world wind of changes based on who I surrounded myself with, the way I treated myself and what I thought was important. Now eight years on and I’m twenty four years old, I’m so different, but I cannot say I’m wholly different. My body has changed, my beliefs have become slightly wiser and I’m slightly more aware of what Helen might be. I still love animals, fall in to books and don’t come out until I’ve finished them, my Yoga practice has continued to be a staple of my life, and I’m still looking for my identity or voice which makes me, me.

The last couple of weeks really got me thinking about me, my life and where I’m at. I love change, I love the movement and excitement of not knowing what’s next, it was what I lived off while travelling. Now a different kind of change, it’s more directed and purposeful yet nevertheless exciting! Let me set the scene; I’m in Edinburgh, I’m starting my Yoga journey of sharing my practice and all the ins and outs which that entails, I’m trying to eat things which make me feel good, (yet I occasionally end up with a tub of ben and jerry’s in my lap just to remind me that I am just that 8 year old still), then in walks my boyfriend back after four months apart. A sweet reunion then ensues, laughing hysterically, being chased upstairs, waking up to a warm shoulder and enjoying silent meals, the presence at the other side of the table being enough. My life was back to where it had been four months earlier, only it was better, I was a more complete and focused Helen. During these blissful reunion days, days merged in to one another, another turn brought a ring and a proposal, and me almost falling off a bannister listening to piano melodies and love’s notes.

At the age of 8 I never dreamt of weddings or mr right, I would more often find myself singing at the top of my lungs; “Penny lane is in my ears and in my EYYES, dum dum dum DUUUMMMM, THERE beneath the blue suburban skies I sit, and meanwhile back…” driving my siblings crazy. At sixteen the idea that I would find someone, willing and myself wanting to get married was as far from the parks I partied my sweet sixteens away at. At twenty four, I’m surrounded by the unexpected and I’m so happy; I’m engaged to a man I met in Hawaii, the first person I met when I left on my own to go travelling two years ago.  One of my closest friends before I left told me; you’re going to fall in love and get married, just don’t do it without me there. I found it hysterical the idea that me, someone who had spent the last year and a half as far away from the opposite sex as possible, would fall in love. I thought she was crazy. After I met him, I told her I think I’m actually in love (the only person I would dare say such a thing too after two weeks). She was right all along and hey presto here I am as proof.

Not only all of this, but it was my birthday which got me hung up on the age milestones of my life thus far. My birthday was perfectly content, with good family, food and love. Now as I continue my life adventure I’m trying to pinpoint where Helen Place starts and where my walls must come up. Each week I’m having different people brought into my life due to Yoga and it’s wonderful, exciting and unnerving. Why are you walking in to my life? What is it that I can give to you? I can’t help but try and figure out why certain people come in to my life when they do, some stay for a long while and others for a fleeting moment, some I help out and others help me, more than they realise. When I turn 32 I don’t know what surprises will be waiting and where Helen Place will be, I’m never so sure!

 

Where do you end and other’s begin? How much has changed in the last eight years? Does any of this make sense anymore?

 

Namaste,

 

Helen ~ WAP