Sunday 1 June 2014

celebrating this life

June 1st marks I've-lived-in-Queensland-longer-than-Victoria day for me. If you had told me twenty years ago that I would still be here, I would have laughed, I had plans to leave as soon as possible!

sunset from my sister's balcony in Airlie Beach
1994 was a year of mixed blessing for my family. The bank foreclosed on the company my parents had run together for twenty five years, and we left the only home we really knew, but we were together and we thought we would always have each others backs.

Our arrival into Airlie Beach was fairly low key, we all fell out of the vehicles, into the shower and into bed. Our first day was spent unpacking vehicles, and hunting down lobster (mum had a dream about eating lobster on the deck watching the sun go down - it didn't work out that way, but the lobster was fabulous cold the next day!)

Things didn't stay sweet and happy for very long. Airlie Beach was the place where our family was ripped apart - parents torn apart after huge loses, kids torn from parents and life turned upside down from the life we were "supposed" to have. We all went our separate ways, and have worked for a long time to rebuild family.

I left Airlie Beach in 1998, when Chloe was just 2 months old. We were heading to the Sunshine Coast, where her dad's family was living. We thought we would have a better chance to build the life we wanted. And we were partly right, we just didn't realise at the time that we didn't want that life to be together.

In early 2000, Chloe and I moved to Brisbane. We found a house close to the university I was studying at, and settled in. Except for the house I spent my childhood in, it was the house I had lived in for the longest (now I have lived behind my purple door for longer than that house), and when Steve and I met, we made the decision to stay in the area because it was growing, and was great for kids.

All those years ago, I thought I would one day leave Queensland, and head back to Victoria. After all, it was what I knew, it was where my friends were, it was my home. But these days comes the wisdom of age. It is true that home is where your heart is. And right now, my heart is tucked in firmly behind the purple door, in suburbia in Queensland.

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2 comments

  1. Very well written, Cate and home can definitely change. What a gorgeous sunset!

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  2. What a lovely picture. I have never moved further than 10 miles from where I was born! It's so interesting to learn a little about your family history and how you came to be where you are now.

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