Nothing quite makes me long for Australia than having to leave it. And return. Then leave it again. After two years of living in Stockholm, I finally flew to Brisbane for three glorious weeks of feeling like a tourist in my own home. Bringing David, a Southern Hemisphere rookie and Australian virgin, helped me gain a new found love and deep appreciation for my country – what I can only imagine parents mean when they say they get to see the world anew through their child’s eyes. I had forgotten how friendly Aussie barista’s can be or how the lorikeets and kookaburra’s become nature’s morning alarm clock. I forgot that our skyline is actually stunning, a smashed avo at brunch is truly God’s gift to the world, and that walking in the sand on a summer’s day is comparative to standing on an active, erupting volcano.
There was so much that we experienced in our short three weeks. We climbed the Story Bridge. We watched the sun rise over Byron Bay’s Lighthouse. We surfed and got wiped out, only to then paddle the board back into the waves to wipe ourselves out again. We rode the CityCat across Brisbane’s dank, brown rivers. We snorkelled and kayaked amongst the shipwrecks in Tangalooma. We drank really, really good coffee and ate banana bread at LEAST every second day. We scratched a koala’s bum! On our first day out we visited Australia Zoo and I asked David how he was feeling and what he thought of Oz so far, to which he laughed and said, “I honestly just can’t wipe the smile off of my face!”. I noticed that my grin was a mirrored reflection of his.
The reunions became the best part, and the most cherished memories, of my time in Australia. My best friends had grown up and moved on. Some bought houses which I had the privilege of being able to see and walk through. Others had made monumental career moves that I got to proudly sit and listen to. My little cousins weren’t so little anymore – they were teenagers now! My grandparents moved and talked differently too, but I realised how lucky I was to be able to witness their aging. I had, of course, missed my parents and brother greatly. We’re an extremely tight-knit family, and although we can live away from each other, we cannot live without one another. It had been years since my brother and I had lived under the same roof with our parents, but over Christmas and New Year’s, the house became full again. It was incredibly special to have both our partners there and to see how the family naturally expanded and evolved around them too. All we have is time, and yet no amount will ever be enough when it’s spent with them.
A cyclical form of heartbreak that I have no one else to blame for but myself, these expatriate coming’s and going’s are beginning to wear me down, no matter how much I try and deny it. You think that each time it will get easier, but it never does. Naturally, you romanticise what your life could be like should you put the suitcase down, ground your itching mind and root yourself home. I know there will be a time where I return to Australia and it won’t just be for a quick visit. I’m so grateful that I have that all ahead of me, whenever it may arise. But for now, it’s back to boarding planes, foreign tongues, strange encounters and unknown surroundings; to stretching and testing this expatriate life for as long as it will have me. As I sit here now on the other side of the world, I find myself feeling extremely lucky to have two homes, to have two lives, to have something that makes saying goodbye so incredibly hard.
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