since I last blogged. Not because I have been ridiculously busy but more so as there wasn’t a lot to share. However, we have something to share now…we are going home to NZ!
That’s right I have parted with the cash (very painful experience) even more so than the hours of trawling the Internet trying to find the best bargain home. So we leave the shores of England on the 8th June, spending some time in Kowloon, Hong Kong (can you say Disneyland!) and then arriving into Auckland on my mum’s birthday. Happy Birthday mum you have 2 big, homeless children returning to you!
Now that we have made the decision to leave I think the stress is on and that has been making my lower back pain worse (pulled a muscle a few weeks ago). I can also feel the tension heavily in my shoulders. It is not that I don’t want to leave – believe me, it is time, but the actual act of moving countries is incredibly stressful. I should know, this is my third country move now. I think I am done with moving, at least countries for the time being. We are both tired and want to settle, be near family and friends, spend more time outdoors and have somewhere to hang our hat and say “I’m home”. It will be nice to be able to go to the bathroom and not have to take everything in with you (shared bathrooms are NO joy).
I am conflicted though. On the one hand I am thankful to be heading home to all our family and friends but on the other, I haven’t lived in NZ for 13 years! How will I cope with going from a population of 64 million to 4 million. I can’t just hop over to France for my baguette, salad and revitalizing shot of wonderful Paris.
Why did we leave NZ in the first place you might ask? First and foremost I have ALWAYS wanted to travel. One top career choice when growing up was “Travel Agent”. I guess it really started to take flight when my best friend at the time moved back to Australia (age 12). I was determined to go and visit her. I got a cleaning job with the next door lady for $5 every Friday after school as I was saving for my first passport and ticket. As you can imagine $5 wasn’t going to get me a ticket anytime soon but I did get a passport (I think mum actually ended up paying for it). I also had another trip mapped out where I would fly into Seattle, get the Greyhound coach up to Vancouver then take the train across Canada to Montreal. What I was going to do when I got to Montreal I wasn’t sure, but at some point Ireland was going to feature in my trip. So moving from NZ to overseas was about partially fulfilling this desire to travel but also experiencing something different and improving our career prospects.
My first overseas trip (as an adult) was to Fiji with my mum. After this (about 6 months later) I had convinced Steve to move to Aussie with me (not that he needed much convincing as he was keen for a new challenge). The plan was to spend some time in Australia and then do our OE to Europe. Little did we know we would be in Australia for so long.
Why were we there for so long? Besides Australia being visually stunning, I loved the anonymity of Australia when we first moved and the opportunities it presented to us. It gave me the time to find out who I was and what I was made of after having left home. Who was Carleen without her family and friends that she relied upon to fall back on? It absolutely strengthened my relationship with Steve as we had to work out everything together as we didn’t know many people so we had to talk things through with each other. Also, the weather played a huge part in lifting my state of mind and my health. While in NZ I had suffered from mild asthma, regular hay fever and on top of this my ongoing weight issues. I now understand how much the NZ weather had affected our physical wellbeing. Then when we finally made Australian friends they welcomed us into their homes where their unique Aussie “no worries” attitude and positive nature was amazing to behold. To us this was an incredible, positive change of psyche. I also thoroughly enjoyed being part of a church that I look back on now as having prepared me for England where we have failed to find a stable church home.
So now I have been traveling for 13 years but NZ is where we want to be right now.
