Moving… 6 Months On
I am now about six months into my move back home (to Wellington, New Zealand). Who knew that one of the more painful admin tasks would be updating my Apple ID region so, you know, I can get local apps (by local apps I mean Neon, and I need it because I don’t like the two steps to my laptop when I am ready to hate watch ‘And Just Like That’ now).
There is something incredibly settling about coming home. At times it has felt like back to the future, living around the corner from where I lived just before I left, makes it feel at times like no time has passed, when the reality is, it’s been 17 years. There have been times when I have been doing the exact thing I used to… and it’s unnerving. Did those years even happen?
One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to not compare. Remember the good of where you left, embrace the good about where you’ve moved to. Everywhere is inherently different.
What has helped during the transition for me?
Keeping the ‘why’ front and centre – remembering why you’ve done something helps on the tougher days. While in some ways I miss my Sydney life extraordinarily, the pull of home was something I couldn’t ignore. I wanted to be closer to my family first and foremost. To that I can say a resounding ‘tick’ – and it’s been great.
Remembering it’s going to take a while to find my groove – turns out it has been hard to replicate the lifestyle I had in Sydney. I have found it hard to be patient while I try different things to build up a new sense of community and activities. The process of elimination, rethinking and trying other angles though, that’s worth it. It’s been more uncomfortable than I thought it would be.
Just because I’ve moved, doesn’t mean connection is lost – friends have gone on the journey with me from afar and closer to home. What’s been lovely has been both reconnecting with old friends and picking up where we left off, with a whole lot of life in between. I value what both remains and what has changed. Life really does happen and that brings with it a richness to relationship. Equally to those friendships held dear are changing, and connection remains possible. I guess after two years of Covid, we’ve all gotten used to greater virtual connection.
For me there has been something really comforting about coming back to the place that I love. Wellington has always held a special place in my heart, in a way Sydney never did. I love a sense of connection to both past, and increasingly a sense of what the future holds. It might not look like what I thought it would, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t be great. And I think that’s been one of the biggest gifts of this change for me, a renewed hope for what life holds.