I THINK the city began to look appealing to me around mid-way through high school.
Going on excursions with other schools, the students from the city always looked cooler to me - taller, even.
After finishing year 10 at Colo High School I enrolled in a city school and travelled in on the train every day. After that, I went to a city university, got a city job, found some city flatmates and moved out.
I made new friends, was given job opportunities, and had numerous conversations with people trying to explain exactly where Bowen Mountain was.
“Ohhhhh, the Blue Mountains! How beautiful!” they’d say.
“No, the Hawkesbury - out past Richmond,” I’d reply.
They’d seem slightly disappointed.
Just visiting
After I moved, my dad would joke, “Why don’t you come back home and live in your old room and work at the Hawkesbury Gazette!” And I’d say, “Yeah, right Dad!”
I wasn’t to know that these jokes would set in motion a chain of events which would turn my scoffing into a karmic reality. Furthermore, that I would actually end up liking it here.
Or maybe, unconsciously, I did want to move home. Who’s to say? My childhood here was tops - it was only when I got older that I started wanting … more.
Either way, the pantry was always better-stocked at my parents’ house, so I didn’t entirely balk at the reality that - after 14 years of being independent - I had no choice but to move home again.
Things had taken a turn for the worse in the city, you see, and I thought a little R&R time at home would help me sort things out.
At first, I travelled into the city at every opportunity. I was freelancing at the time, so I wasn’t stuck on a work schedule and had time to travel in order to socialise with my city friends.
I imagined myself a character in a movie, moving back to her small hometown after years away.
People were friendlier, traffic was lighter, supermarket lines were shorter.
Two-and-a-half years later, I was still living at my parents’ place, and had begun to spend most of my time hiding in the downstairs area where I now lived.
When Mum and Dad announced they were renovating that area and I’d have to move back upstairs into my old room for a little while, I was horrified.
Shortly afterwards, I landed a part-time job as a reporter at the Gazette. And you know what? I liked it.
It’s funny how things work out.
