The Push and the Pull of Different Places

A new place is as equally exciting as it is daunting.

You get excited about being somewhere different, someplace new to put a piece of ‘you’ into, but at the same time, you have to learn where everything is and all the little idiosyncrasies that the place holds.

I had never been to Sydney before, but decided to move there on a whim with the encouragement of a good girl friend of mine who had moved there six months earlier. I had met her at University, and she had never really found her footing. She was always struggling with money, flipping from one place to the next, and wasn’t happy within herself. She was offered a really great job in Sydney, so she ditched her half-done half-arsed degree, packed her things, and went.

She thrived, she really did. She fell in love with the place, and within a few months, she had settled in, losing weight, and genuinely feeling a lot better about herself.

Struck by a moment of boredom and being a little bit lost myself, when she told me to come for a visit, I answered with, “Why don’t I just move there?”

Within a month I was gone, moving states, leaving behind everyone I held dear preferring to take a risk and have an adventure.

I was so incredibly excited. If my friend could pull her life together, then so could I. But I was more excited about learning the landscape, living in an apartment, finding new friends, getting a completely different job.
Sydney welcomed me with open arms, giving me the most beautiful first night I could ever hope for.

I was off to a good start, having found a job within a week, and even met a boy. It took me two weeks to find my local supermarket, my favourite coffee place, and my favourite shopping centre.

However, I never got used to the train system, or the vibe of the place – Sydney is nothing like Melbourne. The roads didn’t make any sort of sense to me, and the people were pretty much the exact opposite of people in Melbourne.

I also got pretty lonely. I was on the phone every night to my partner (who, at the time, wasn’t my partner yet), asking for advice or just some reassuring words. I started making friends, but they were people who migrated to Sydney like myself, from England and Noosa and Melbourne.

I stayed there for six months, trying to make it work, but Sydney wasn’t really my place. It never felt like I could make it home.

What moving did for me, though, was teach me how to survive without a security blanket of friends and family, how to be a part of the great Rat Race, and on a smaller not, how to cook. Moving taught me a lot of things about myself as well – I’m crazily independent, I have too much pride, I’m not as stubborn as I thought I was, I’m impulsive, and that I can make just about anything work if I try hard enough.

Changing places is a good thing, really. I feel like you learn so much more when you aren’t surrounded by everything you’ve ever known. Even just moving from one side of Melbourne to the other, has taught me plenty, all over again.

Change can be so damn scary, especially when you are doing it on your own. But it’s also full of hope and wonder, possibilities and adventure.

#_change
#_life
#_new_places
#_learning
#_accepting

%selfavenue