Starting Over....

August 2009. exactly one year and eight months ago, i came to Australia to travel . part of me always knew i would stay here.  I had never been travelling before (except a few family holidays as a child and some short weekend breaks to Europe, and always with a friend or two).  I have had a facination with Australia since I was a child, but i always saw it as too far away to ever contemplate actually going to. i always saw myself as "not the travelling kind".

I was 27 years old.  I had a career set up as a Social Worker in Manchester. I had more friends than one person would ever know what to do with who would do pretty much anything for me.  I had a beautiful apartment that i called "the palace".it had heated floors and a balcony and a bathroom that wouldnt be out of place in a hotel.  I had a car. enough savings to think about a mortgage. i had a life.

but fuck it. i gave it up and I moved to Melbourne.

Before i left England. flights booked. resignation letter posted. apartment keys handed back to the agent. i met up with my very first boyfriend in my hometown. he told me how he had never stopped loving me and how he had never met another girl like me.  I told him he was crazy. we were 15 years old back then. we went as far as  holding hands while i accompanied him on his paper round.  he told me he knew then he could never be enough for me.  he told me i was always looking for something more....

2 weeks to my flights, a lifetime of failed relationships, with all my belongings in boxes and only a rucksack full of my future. his words hit home hard.

but here i am. one year and eight months later. i might always be looking for something more. but really,  i don't regret any of it.

after all i still have a good job. a quirky apartment to myself and a small local collection of awesome friends. a whole world full of others.

life in Melbourne is certainly different to life back in England.  Sometimes i feel incredibly lost.  but mostly im just too busy living to notice....

and so it began, begins and will become.