Sarah | Mount Maunganui, Bay of Plenty

“I lived overseas for about six years and I never, ever thought I’d come back to New Zealand. I was kind of flown away and I was a bit done with New Zealand. Then I kind of landed here again, the year before last year.

I came from India and just moving back here made me realise how much I’d missed my family, gosh I’m going to cry already, and I met my partner now, and we’re having a baby together. So, it’s amazing how much you can go away and explore and see, and then come back, and feel so at home in a place. Even though I don’t necessarily have the friends I had originally when I was younger, just having my parents, seeing my grandma pass away when I came back and just making like a whole new family for myself here. So, I guess, when you’re in your early-20s, family doesn’t seem very important to you, but then I think, when you start to get a little bit older, you realise that stuff is really important.

I think it’s just cool to see how fast your life can change. I went from being a travelling yoga teacher, to actually feeling really grounded in my life and just finding the person who’s the right person for you is really cool as well. So, baby’s due in June. First baby, which is crazy to think to of where I was living in Amsterdam two years ago to where I am now, and I think that is just like the groundedness of being home, as well. I don’t think I’d have this experience if I was living somewhere else, I wouldn’t feel comfortable and I wouldn’t feel secure especially with our Government and stuff, and the good maternity leave we have. I just feel so grateful that I live in a country like this. 

So I grew up in Katikati, which is half an hour away from here. I was a country girl. I was always into art, and then I went to Massey University and studied design. From there, I decided I didn’t want to anything to do with design anymore and I basically took off and I lived in London and then I ended up working in event management in London and then I got bit over London, the big city vibe and I moved to Amsterdam, and I worked in advertising in the end. So, I ended up doing like a full 360 back to my degree. There I was working in quite an intense job, which was actually really stressful, and I ended up finding yoga, which I feel saved me, because I had really bad insomnia and it was just life-changing for me. So I made my first trip to India and then I ended up going back a year later and studying yoga, and then I spent seven months there teaching, studying, getting into yoga, and then I ended up coming back here, and I teach yoga and it’s a pretty nice balanced life.”