Back in Sydney, Travel + Life Abroad, Travel: Australia, Travel: Germany
Coming and Going
It’s a peculiar thing, going home, when you no longer live there. Much like most of the landmarks, your history remains, intact and untouched. So do, give or take one or two as the years pass by, the people who preserve it. Many of them want to know when I’ll be home and it takes a moment or two to discern what they mean. When am I going home? Or when am I coming home? I’m going home in a couple of weeks, but I’m not coming home at any point in the foreseeable future for a variety of reasons and a motley collection of hard-earned or accidentally-collected anchors.
This trip has been a different one. Up until it, we have always talked about the possibility of us moving to Australia – a move that would entail ripping up more roots than I did when I moved simply myself and a suitcase to Germany on a wing and a prayer and a working holiday visa. We have talked about the lifestyle Australia can offer us, with the mild weather and beautiful environment of Sydney tugging with quiet but relentless strength. Up until this trip, the answer to ‘and when are you home?’ has been along the lines of, ‘we’d love to come and live in Australia if we can, perhaps a few years down the track.’ Up until a few weeks ago, I was comfortable with that quiet, relentless tug that creates the oft-repeated answer. It’s simply a part of how I have chosen life to be. And I always assumed that, one day, and probably not too far in the distant future, that one final tug would win, toppling me sideways and pulling me back down here. And if that meant pulling my relationship and that motley collection of anchors with me, then we’d try and make that work, haul ourselves over that bridge when we came to it.
But then, a few weeks ago, we were walking along the Yarra river in Melbourne on a scorching summer’s day, jetlagged and sticky. The conversation that, by now, is worn with use, familiar as a winter coat come February, bubbled up between us once more; would we, could we, make the move to Australia. And as we talked, about costs and employment and education and property and lifestyle and the logistics of relocation, I waited to feel it, that obvious little twinge that always reminds me of where I come from and how brightly that burns inside. And I felt it, I always will. But I also felt something else. Something else that had bumped in alongside that twinge. Something had picked up the other side of the rope and was matching Australia, pull for pull, tug for tug. It was a simple realisation, one almost too simple to pass comment on, one I feel strange even calling a realisation, because how had I not known it before? Or was it so simple, so normal, it wasn’t noticeable, or rather, worth noticing?
It was a realisation of like. I like my lifestyle in Germany. All of the little pieces that make it what it is, I like them. In fact, many of those pieces, I love. And beyond like and love, there is the even simpler issue of capability. I can do it. I can live here. I can, and I have, made a little patch of a foreign country, my own. Even before listing the positives, the obvious ones, the ones that go head to head with those of Australia’s list, the fundamentals are there. The cement has dried on the foundations; I like it and I can do it.
So we will, for the foreseeable future. And how lucky I am, that I can come and go and always find a home, and people who will hold my history while I’m gone.
Aidan Dwyer
17 February, 2014 at 12:30 ambeautifully written Liv. The notion you can always come and go is reassuring for me..
Liv
18 February, 2014 at 1:11 amIt’s an ever-present ‘net’ of sorts, isn’t it.
Lutz Mowinski
17 February, 2014 at 12:55 amIt is a comforting thought that you will always have something to go back to or rather a choice in the long run of where you want to spend your days 🙂
Also, having friends in both places is a nice plus ^^
Liv
18 February, 2014 at 1:10 amThat’s right – having friends and family on both sides of the globe needs to be seen as great fortune, not the other way round.
JuLi
17 February, 2014 at 3:31 pm😉 Während der Kopf noch denkt, irgendwann ganz großartige Entscheidungen treffen zu müssen, sammelt der Bauch ganz still und leise seine Gefühle, bis er die Entscheidung einfach kennt. ^^
Alles Gute für eure Zukunft, wo auch immer! 🙂
Liv
18 February, 2014 at 1:10 amDu hast natürlich recht. Vielen Dank für die weisen Worte.
Tim
18 February, 2014 at 12:26 pmdo we have a WH visa in germany? didnt know that! 🙂
Liv
20 February, 2014 at 5:14 amHahaha yes! Wait a minute … surely you’re on it, in Australia?
Tim
9 March, 2014 at 3:30 pmHaha you’re right, just realized it works the other way round as well! It’s just that I never thought about it and haven’t really met anyone on a whv in Germany. But yeah, it makes perfectly sense. 😀
Gaby
19 February, 2014 at 3:39 pmExcellent post! That’s how I feel about my hometown and Chile. Hoping that I will soon figure out my plans for after graduation and I will know where I’ll next be laying down roots- deep or not!
Liv
20 February, 2014 at 5:13 amI will be watching with GREAT interest to see where you end up, and why!
Gaby
20 February, 2014 at 3:55 pmYou are so kind, Liv. Let’s just hope that I don’t end up in my parents’ basement!
Meg Rainbow
19 February, 2014 at 4:58 pmI discovered your blog entirely by accident – I am originally from Bavaria, and my husband from Brisbane. We have made Switzerland our home, now for over 10 years. What you describe is exactly how my husband feels as well. Very inspiring to read your experience and know you are not the only one feeling like that and struggling with it – at times. Keep on writing. I shall be a regular on your blog from now on!
Liv
20 February, 2014 at 5:12 amSo lovely to hear from you, and thank you for your comment. A Brisbanian in Switzerland, does he get a little cold? Do you get out to Aus much? I think the ongoing, ever changing definition of home is such an interesting one. Transplanting myself into a different country and culture has been like one enormous experiment, but a worthwhile one.
MontgomeryFest
19 February, 2014 at 6:09 pmbeautifully put, liv! home is such a peculiar thing. ha! tim..
Liv
20 February, 2014 at 5:10 amThank you! It is a peculiar thing, isn’t it … especially when the damn thing keeps changing.
Comparing | Liv Hambrett
20 February, 2014 at 5:26 am[…] pros, which means I have to dig deep to find the things I love about the competing location. As I wrote a few days ago, I have recently realised how much I love my life in the competing location – Germany – […]