So now that I've had my bimonthly blogging epiphany, it's time to stop all of this "blogging about blogging" nonsense. I think we all get it. I want to write more. I haven't been publishing many posts. I've redesigned this space more times this year than I've written honestly about my life. Blah blah blah why do I say the same thing over and over again?

I've been at my job for a month now, and despite having to overcome a little hurdle called "imposter syndrome", I'm loving this job and am inspired and excited every day. I also love feeling like a proper adult with my swipe card hanging off my pencil skirt and the dual-screen setup at my desk. I'm learning a ton and mastering skills I didn't know I could have/need. It makes such a difference to be working towards something. I always struggled with hospitality, not because I didn't enjoy it or do well, but because so much of my time was taken with tasks I'd need to repeat again and again every day to reach the same goal.

babbling. as always.

I had a moment of clarity while I was hanging out the washing this morning. Most of my great moments of clarity come as I my mind wanders whist doing household chores. I'm going to wash the dishes after I write this, so with any luck I'll have solved all of the worlds problems by dinner time tonight.
I started this blog, after deleting I don't know how many others, because I had fallen in love with the unbridled words of Bekah on her now-extinct blog my little loves. She isn't the only blogger to inspire me with tales of life and love and challenges and triumphs, but she was the first to inspire uninhibited honesty in my writing. I tried, as far as possible, to write without a filter, to treat my blog as a truly safe space and forget about who might or might not be reading my words.
As my readership grew, and especially as people in my 'real life' started discovering it, the filter crept back in and I started leaving drafts unpublished. A few at first, then a lot more. Now I hover over that publish button like I'm contemplating deploying an atomic bomb.
Bekah took down her blog because she needed to protect the privacy of her family. Perhaps I wanted to read that as a condemnation of personal blogging in its entirety, but really, she just did what was right for her. And what was right for a young mother of two is not necessarily right for me, whose life is entirely different to hers. When my mum asked me why I wrote my blog about my own life, I told her it was because the blogs I love reading are about the lives of others. Others who share the seemingly mundane and remind me of what is most important: relationships, being present, acknowledging the little things. Actually, I think I shrugged, but that would have been a better response so play along with me.
 I'm not saying I want to share everything, but I want to share the important things. Everything that had been going on since this move to Darwin has been huge and important and often scary, and I don't want leave it out just because it doesn't make my life look neat and shiny. Life isn't neat and shiny.
Tom and I have been struggling since his job fell through. We moved up for a dream that didn't work out and now we have to readjust our expectations and review our gameplan. We've fought, we've cried, but what we've really done is grow together.
The more BIG THINGS that happen without being shared here, the less this feels like the safe space I had envisioned and the harder it is to dive back in. It's been literally a whole year since this vicious cycle started ruining my relationship with this space. I'm declaring a ceasefire. I'm not going to make another one of my many broken blogging promises, but I'm going to attempt to write daily for this week only. I may slip up, so don't feel sad, but I think we could do with some quality time getting to know one another better again. 

Kelsey, I don't know what would have happened to this space if you hadn't reached out to me. You inspire me.

lately

I guess I was avoiding this place. There was so much uncertainty and my life needed me more than I allowed myself to need to write about it all. There is still so much uncertainty, but there is clarity amidst that.

We moved for an opportunity for Tom, but thus far relocating has worked out really only for me. Tom's job hasn't been what he expected. Tom's job is no longer Tom's job. I don't know how else to say that. It's really upsetting to see him doubt himself when there are clearly so many things about that whole situation that are nothing to do with his abilities or his value as a person. He'll find something new, something better matched to his incredible mind and his passion for Environmental Science. But to say that this has been tough is an understatement. I could not have predicted how much it would challenge us. And I definitely would never have predicted how relieving it could be for Tom to lose that position. After so much stress and pain and worry, it was like a heavy weight had been lifted.

I, on the other hand, applied for an awesome position in Youth Services and am proud to say that I've been working there for three weeks and I absolutely love it. I'm working with some amazing people and on some exciting projects. I'm planning a couple of events and it's both exciting and terrifying to be solely responsible for their success; I've only worked as part of a team on things like this (and only in my spare time).

It's challenging having such different experiences of this move. We both love Darwin, but Tom has been uninspired and overwhelmed while I've been quite the opposite. He's been working out of the city and I'm right in the heart of that tiny hub of activity. I've made a few friend through working at a coffee shop when we first arrived, he's only been able to meet people through the workplace that hasn't been a great place to him. It's like we're living in two entirely different places.
 

That said, we're managing to explore this beautiful city more and more now that life has calmed down and it's been so nice to find a Darwin that belongs to both of us. Yesterday we visited the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and then enjoyed the sunshine at the Ski Club for a beer. It was the perfect date to reconnect. I love our love and I love Tom's resilience.

I'll write soon. How are you all?

Roadtrip Diaries :: Leaving Adelaide

The removalists came in the morning and demonstrated great feats of strength carting our couch and the bed Tom built us into an empty shipping container. Mum and I sat under the Magnolia tree together one last time and watched. I vacuumed the house and Tom directed his dad in how to keep the fish. We packed our final possessions and said goodbye to our home of the last two years. The stressing and the fighting of the night before were forgotten in our resolve to start a new chapter together. I cried a few more times saying goodbye to my mum, to Tom’s mum, to my little sister whose eighteenth birthday I wouldn't be around to celebrate.

As soon as we hit the highway we were free, the tension that had accompanied the rushed move fell away and we were back to that place we had been on our last roadtrip. It was just us and the road and the terrible/brilliant nineties playlist we had created for the trip. Apart from those few pieces of furniture in the shipping container headed for Darwin, the contents of the car was everything we had. I could not have known how free that would make me feel until we had left everything else behind.