My First Month in Geelong

It’s remarkable to think that a full month has passed since I decided to leave Sydney on a whim and move down to Geelong. For me, there was barely any risk involved as my parents were already planning to move here in retirement. Build the dream house, be close to the ocean and get away from the large crowds engulfing major cities they said!

It was never my intention to relocate here, but over a particularly beautiful morning waking up to the sight of a pink sky moon, it dawned on me that life could be something more. The pandemic completely fucked us all into a protracted state of ennui and for some time, I thought there was no way out of it. My approach to everything became quite myopic, and I lost sight of the things that made me truly happy.

Beyond my relationships with friends, colleagues and family, I longed for adventure. I have always had so much love to give to those I care about but for some reason or another, none of my friends and family could involve themselves in the activities I truly felt recharged by. Whether it be down to money issues, time, laziness, lack of interest, overthinking or a feeling of consternation, I started to see that the only way for me to achieve my dreams was to do things on my own.

It’s been almost three years since I’ve been in a serious relationship, or one at all where a casual hookup isn’t involved. I’ve learnt to stop waiting for Mr Right, and am choosing to live in the here and now. How freeing it has been to truly understand that happiness is a choice that I can make everyday. So when the epiphanic thought popped into my mind that I could veer towards a nomadic lifestyle, unbound by the chains of geography, I went for it.

So far, it has paid off but a large portion of my heart still feels the pain of not being close to my incredible friends and family – the ones that were built upon endless pillars of memory and years of experience. I miss everyone like crazy and the transition from seeing my best friends every week to what it is now has been incredibly difficult. I’ve been going between moments of swimming in self doubt, to feeling hopeful about forming new lifelong connections with other humans. I have crossed paths with some really nice people but it’s different altogether trying to build to a real friendship where you can call each other anytime, and get to a point of genuine comfortability.

Last week, I attended my first ever speed dating event where I was more interested in sussing out potential friends than actually hitting it off with a guy. In doing so, I probably wasted a lot of people’s time which I feel a bit bad about. In my first week here, I reached out to the only person I knew well enough from Melbourne to actually hang out with. His name was Harrison and I had met him through one of my best friends. I always knew Harrison was a good person, and someone I could imagine as becoming a close friend very easily. The part I was not prepared for, was the insane connection I felt towards him on a non-platonic level. How easy it was to chat about life, love and everything in-between over lunch and a few drinks. How rare it is to meet someone that you instantly feel comfortable with, someone to share secrets with as if you’ve known them your whole life.

You asked me if I’d ever been in love, or if I believed in ‘the one’ and I could feel your vast blue eyes searching the very souls of mine. In that moment, I truly did believe that soulmates could exist and I longed for a chance to explore the concept of ‘us’ further. Something about our interaction that day moved me, and suddenly I was reminded that my heart could still feel. That maybe, just maybe it could one day beat for another.

It is an incredibly humbling experience to be able to sit for hours with someone while the cacophony of crowd somehow mumbles its way into the background, as wallpaper. In that moment, there was no one else but you and I, singing songs of our lost loves while watching the world go past through the ripples trailing behind Yarra River hire boats.