The 5-Min Soul Share: Are We Staying In Australia?

First of all, thank you for all of your endless support, love, and encouragement over the last couple of days. Since sharing the details of our current situation and the uncertainty around it, I have received an outpour of heartfelt messages and phone calls from friends both here and back home to check in on us. It means the world.

Living with uncertainty feels uncomfortable, like that sensation you get when an episode of your favourite series ends and you are left with a cliff hanger. The kicker is - this was the season finale and you have to wait for months to figure out how it all ends. Just on a big, life-as-you-know-it threatening scale.

This is how I have felt since the beginning of 2019.

Eating disorder aside, this is probably the hardest thing I’ve gone through so far. This might sound melodramatic and I know I’m incredibly blessed to have a visa problem as “the hardest thing I’ve gone through”, so bear with me as I explain why I feel so strongly about this.

You guys know that I am absolutely in love with this country - and especially the little Bondi bubble. I moved here three years ago on a whim - without a job, without a real plan and crashing at a friend’s place for the first couple of weeks. I’d never even been to Australia or knew much about it; but somehow I was intuitively drawn to it.

And surely enough, three years later, I can say without a shred of doubt in my heart that this is the best thing I have ever done. This city ignited something deep within me - something that continues to grow stronger with each passing day: a feeling of home. Like I’ve finally arrived. I have never felt more authentically myself than I have here, in this part of the world hundreds and thousand of kilometres away from my passport country.

I honestly wasn’t prepared for the magnitude of emotions that would hit me when the prospect of having to leave Australia became real. It’s like the flood gates opened and it just all came crashing out. Phil and I had countless evening conversations that ended in tears and the profound realisation of "We are not ready to close this chapter.” Take what it will, we are determined to stay in Australia.

What’s so ironic about this all is the fact that I’m so used to big-scale moves! I have never lived in one place for more than three years at a time, and I NEVER EVER had an issue with packing up and starting a new life in a foreign place. Every time our parents sat us down and said the famous sentence “We are moving again.”, I was excited and ready to go.

What’s even more ironic is that we are just about to hit the three year mark - and as if the universe is playing a cruel joke - it’s telling us that yet again we won’t be staying put in one place for more than three years.

In this whole process, I’ve come to realise that I never really had a strong emotional attachment to anywhere I lived, and that living in Bondi is the first time that I have a deep attachment . Living here is literally the definition of my dream life and I’ve never been happier. It’s the small things - like the fact that I’ve got my local coffee guys who know my order and the fact that I cannot walk for ten minutes without bumping into at least one friend along the beach. From my morning sunrise routine to my F45 crew, the 440 crew, the 6W2S crew, picking up surfing, grabbing organic produce at the farmers market each weekend, the incredibly inspiring and uplifting friends that I’ve met in the health/fitness scene, the amount of awesome fitness studios that I get to discover, all the really cool events that I get to be a part of and some even co-host, the amazing brands that I get to work with, doing yoga or working out at the beach, the many sunset beach and coastal walks we’ve done, the endless amount of healthy food options, the mega successful business babes I get to meet and be inspired by and simply everyone that’s impacted my life here in small and big ways. I love it all and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

I very much identify with the concept of being a TCK (third culture kid), and for the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve found home. There’s so much more I want to say about this topic and the many things that have unravelled within me, especially after reading the book Third Culture Kids by David C. Pollock, but for now I want to update you on what our next steps are…

You ready?

* drum roll please *

WE ARE MOVING TO MELBOURNE!

Without going into the whole decision process, I am starting a master’s program in Melbourne next month. I always knew that I wanted to do a master’s at one point, but I certainly didn’t think it would be so soon. My plans for 2019 looked very different, and yet here I am. I’m in this weird limbo where I’m really excited about going back to uni and my head has made up it’s mind, but my heart isn't ready yet to leave our little bubble behind.

To be completely honest, the whole thing has happened so fast and I’ve been so bogged up in the logistics of it all, that I haven’t had the time to sit and process what is about to happen. I am literally moving to Melbourne in seven days, and we only decided on this less than two weeks ago. This day next week I will no longer be in my home, at my job, walking on the beach, but instead I will be sitting in a lecture at Melbourne Uni. It’s so crazy.

[ Funny side note: as I was deciding between universities in Melbourne or Sydney, the universe was giving us all kinds of weird signals. First, my surf board broke. Basically saying “no more surfing for you, get outta here”. Then, one day in the middle of the night, our big ocean wave picture came crashing down from the bedroom wall as we were sleeping. And lastly, we found out we had mould all over our bedroom closet and had to unhang half the clothes to assess the damage and try to get the mould out. By the end of it, I felt like our bedroom looked like we were already in the process of moving apartments. Universe, what u trying tryin’ to tell us?! ]

For the time being, I continue to move full-speed ahead with life admin and logistics. I basically haven’t had a lunch break at the office for the last 1 ½ months as I spend all my break time on the phone, doing research or filling out forms. I still don’t have my student visa sorted, I have no flights booked, not sorted out living arrangements, don’t know anyone down in Melbourne and am still in the process of wrapping up my current job in Sydney.

But I continue to embrace the not-knowing, and am certain that this is just the beginning of a larger plan that is about to unfold. I am trying hard to remain present in my body and mind. There is no future—just a constant set of “nows.” And I’m trying to make the most of the last days I have in this chapter of my life, before I’m off to start yet another. I’m just re-reading one of Eckhart Tolle’s books and this quote resonated hard with me:

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you’re having at the moment.”

I’ll leave you with that, my friends.