Finding home away from Home

Today marks my 9th wedding anniversary, and a new D-Day as we depart Australia for Singapore.

Almost 9 years ago to the day I landed on Australia’s shores. 1 month after my dream winter wedding in the English countryside. 2 months after my Aussie then-fiancé got deported back to Australia in order to secure the right to get married to me in the UK.

After a 4-week honeymoon through Malaysia, I was promised more sun, sea and sand in Sydney.? The illusion was shattered as soon as our plane broke through the clouds on landing. Grey thunderclouds broke out into pouring rain from the moment we landed until we reached our serviced apartment that would be home for a week before we were on our own. The harsh reality of leaving my favourite city in the world, all close friends and family and work early on left me ending the next several evenings in the foetal position in bed thinking “I give it a year”.

The weeks and, frankly, months that followed remained rocky despite the Hubby working overtime to assuage my melancholy and meet every requirement on the radar. Apartment with a sea view: tick. Recreating London by sourcing theatre tickets at extortionate prices: tick. Getting UK girl friends to visit as soon as we had a bed: tick.?

Yet it was months before my visa paperwork would be through which left me, a driven corporate lawyer who derived purpose from being able to achieve, unable to work. As ideal as living by the beach sounds, as a city girl, used to a soundtrack of sirens as I slept, cafes and restaurants being open till late, and active-wear being appropriate only when working out, living in a sleepy beach side town without the usual prerequisite accessories of a puppy or a baby left me bereft. The UK would always be capital- “H”,? Home and Australia could never come closer than an “experience”.?

Fast forward 9 years, 2 children, friends who have become family, and our own business, and I’m so glad I stuck it out. As I began curating a new home from scratch, slowly the need to retain VPNs to watch Great British Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing dissipated. New law firm role in an office with harbour views: tick. Sydney lifestyle subscriptions for events and recommendations: tick. Starting a family of my own: tick. Building a network of colleagues, friends and particularly close new mum friends: tick, tick, and tick. Australia became my second home. Maternity leave by the beach trumped my few trips back to England in winter, swapping flip flops for wellies and having to hose down mud from pram tyres after every park visit. Peripheral UK friendships dwindled but key ones strengthened. Expat friendships allowed for support when we missed family, particularly during the Covid pandemic. I became an Australian citizen and was forced by compulsory voting to engage in Australia’s political system and participate.

I found my purpose in Australia by being away from “Home”. Putting the time in to cultivate relationships and live in to my values, first and foremost of which is connection - people have come to give me a true sense of what it is to feel at home.?

I also found my purpose through experiences of alienation, racism, and tall poppy syndrome (an Antipodean phenomenon of people putting down another for their success and achievements). As I began writing this on a return train journey between Canberra and Sydney, I was moved by the practice of ticket inspectors who, instead of asking to see tickets, worked their way down each carriage reading the names of the allocated travelers and welcoming them in person. A warm personal touch I’ve never seen on a public transport service before. Until they reached me, the only non-Caucasian in the carriage with a non-Anglo Saxon name. Distinct from every other passenger in the carriage before me, they stopped, paused at the paper in front of them, and asked “and you are?…”.?

Whether or not discriminatory, being different is something that you just get reminded of every single day, multiple times, by people both known and unknown to you. It can be draining. And I’ve already seen it deplete my 6 year old daughter at times. So I have dedicated time outside a “day job” to combine my lived and learned experience to help organisations take steps towards equity. Thanks to years of working globally and remotely I’ve built a community of fellow “others” throughout Australia who are also striving to effect change. It is a community that I am so grateful for, and I’m equally grateful for being able to work in environments which allow me to maintain my Australian relationships from afar and continue the work that I have begun here.

So whilst I’m choosing to exercise my privilege to move myself and my family to a new destination and immerse ourselves in new surroundings in a bid to continue to find new angles of addressing differences, I won’t turn my back on the potential I still see in the birthplace of my 2 children.

I will always feel about Australia like I do about my closest family: I’ve earned the right to have a moan, but if you even try to agree or join me, I’ll shoot you down and jump to their defence.?

So it is with bittersweet emotions that I leave Australia before starting the journey to make another home in Singapore. Packing up our home in Canberra where we’ve spent the last 2 and a half years it was eery how quickly that home became nothing more than a house as soon as the final box was loaded into the removals truck.? A reminder that even if I’m not Home, my family unit will always be home away from Home.?