Return to Aus! How I feel 12 months after we visited home!

On February 15, 2018 we landed for the first time in almost 3 years, back in Melbourne. We were returning as I had been hired by a very good friend to photograph her wedding. It was the perfect opportunity to return home and see friends and family who we had been missing for so long. The feeling of returning home after so long is strange! It's as if nothing has changed but everything is different. I remember feeling so happy to be back in the land of Aus, and excited to see everyone but I was also nervous... After being away for so long, you wonder if you will even fit in anymore or even relate to anyone. Thankfully we were able to meet up with many friends and of course it was as if we never left. (Besides some of the extra babies and a few new partners we hadn't met yet) In the two weeks we spent back home, we tried to make as much of the limited days we had as possible not only visiting people but taking some time to sight see and enjoy our time experiencing things we wanted to do... High on my list was swimming in the ocean, visiting some wineries and spending some time in the city exploring the alley ways and drinking the best coffee and most delicious brunches in the world!

Unfortunately, I will admit that two weeks definitely wasn't long enough and in hindsight I wish we had of just taken more time to enjoy being back and taking it all in... Next time we hope to return for a longer visit. But, I was so happy to be back and enjoyed every second of my time there.. It was so amazing to see Melbourne with fresh new eyes and revel in just how beautiful my home really is. When we left in March 2015, we were tired, jaded, and ready to say goodbye to the Melbourne we knew and had grown to not like. Returning home was exactly what I had needed, I had spent a good part of 3 years completely homesick, struggling to fully embrace my life in Canada and not able to let go of my rose coloured views of home... even though I had left on my own terms, the regret was eating away at me on a daily basis, always questioning if I had made the right choice to leave.

Before we left, (and after) we kept getting asked the same question that we have been asked constantly since the day we left Australia... "Are you ever moving back?" It's such a loaded question - you don't want to disappoint anyone, so you just end up giving them a vague answer. The truth is - I really don't know what the future holds for us, we moved to Canada for a fresh start and a new adventure! We promised to stay for at least 3 years before making any decisions and now we are leading up to year 4! It's already been a whole 12 months since we visited and here we are again about to tick off another year spent living half way across the world and each day get's harder and harder to imagine a life back in Australia. That doesn't mean we will never move back - not at all... it just means we aren't making plans for anything. We left Australia because at that time in our lives it just felt like the right thing to do, so I guess a part of me is waiting for the moment when I feel like moving back is the right thing to do. I've definitely had my moments when I have planned for us to move back when I have been fed up with the obstacles we have faced, or throughout the winter when my Seasonal Affective Disorder kicks in but then something keeps holding me here, it's a feeling I can't explain wholly. I just get this feeling in the pit of my stomach that my time in Canada isn't over yet and it's not the right time to leave. So we stay.

“When you move from one country to another you have to accept that there are some things that are better, and somethings that are worse, and there is nothing you can do about it" - Bill Bryson Don't get me wrong, I miss Australia, I miss my friends, my family, the warmth and so much more but I also have grown to love my life in Canada. I love my friends here who have become family, I love the experiences we get to have, I love the culture, the laidback lifestyle of living on Vancouver Island and the feeling that here in Canada I have accomplished so much more than I ever felt I could in Australia. So right now, I am content! I have stopped making plans to move back, I have begun to stop comparing Canada and Australia, I am enjoying the moments I have, enjoying the friendships I have built and enjoying a marriage I love. And right now that is enough for me.

Life might be difficult for a while, but i would tough it out because living in a foreign country is one of those things that everyone should try at least once. My understanding was that it completed a person, sanding down the rough provincial edges and transforming you into a citizen of the world" - David Sedaris