Jay | Taylorville, Greymouth

“It’s a really big question. I could say there’s lots of things but I think one thing that I regret is not being truer to myself when I was younger, because I’m really old now. I’m 46. I regret not taking better care of myself, or being truer to myself.

So, I mean in terms of following the things that I wanted to do with my life, because people do this all the time, and I was classic for it, leaving it for later and then later never really comes. So, I guess if I could do it all again, I would just follow my own path rather than worrying about what my parents thought, my friends thought, society thought, all of those sort of things, which is more what I’m doing now. But the silver lining from that is that I have so much stuff that I’ve learned, and I’ve met so many amazing people, I’ve been really lucky and now with all our learning, I do have the strength to be able to say, you know what, that doesn’t suit me, or no I’m not going to do that, or yes I can, because I can bring that to the table, which I couldn’t have done when I was younger. 

I grew up in Ōamaru in a small seaside town, which is really pretty, if you’ve never been there. Small plug for the hometown. I’ve lived all over the South Island. So, I’ve lived in Nelson and the Abel Tasman National Park. I’ve lived just outside of Central Otago. So in terms of what I’ve done with my life, I’ve had real jobs. So, I’ve been a receptionist. I’ve worked at Work and Income, as a case manager, and I’ve been a personal trainer, and currently I’m working as a designer and artist, which is what I spent my whole life training to be, and finally got there. 

The things that I value in life are integrity, quality conversations, family, friends, the environment. So I value where I live, and I value or I care deeply about what is happening in our world. God so many things that I really value, but probably those would be my key things. Integrity definitely. We need more of that.

So currently I am the events support person for New Coasters here in Greymouth. So, we support multi-cultural activities and we’re a community-led development. So, on 7 November, we worked with the Indian community to help them present the Diwali festival in Hokitika.”