#30YearsRolling – Day 14/30 – Reflections on the 30th Anniversary of my Injury
ONE WAY TICKET
The experiences with politics and the new job combined with the confidence I was gaining though dating and doing a lot of socialising had me feeling really positive about life and the future in a way I hadn’t before.
I was happy with the plan to pursue a career as a politician in the long term and enjoy the job I had in the meantime.
The role was a Service Coordinator, the work was fast paced and I really liked the people I was working with.
The new place was only a few doors down the street from where I was working prior so travel was pretty much the same.
Dating wise, after over a year of online dating and seeing a couple of people beyond a first date, I found myself in a long distance relationship with a man living in Adelaide.
He was someone I’d worked closely with for over a year before discovering at one of my Friday night BBQs that there was an attraction there.
This happened a month before he was due to return to Adelaide.
From the very beginning I made it clear that there was no way I would ever be moving to Adelaide so he came up to Sydney every second weekend and stayed with me without us really considering the long term logistics or viability of the relationship.
After around a year of doing this it was getting way too hard.
The weekends we were together we barely slept, trying to cram two weeks into a few nights then the time in between we found ourselves being miserable on the phone to each other every night.
Until that point I was still adamant there was no way I would move.
I’d never even visited Adelaide in this time.
I had a great life in Sydney, I was rarely home, and was committed to the political aspirations.
It came to a point, through the help of a fantastic counsellor I saw for a few sessions, where I realised that I was only 29, young enough to start again and worst case I could always move back if it didn’t work out.
He tried to talk me out of it, not wanting me to give up so much of what I’d worked for.
When I made the decision though I was all in and started researching where we could live that would be close to his son’s school, what services were available and how I would need to access them.
I got some good introductions to people in Adelaide to connect with to continue my political interests.
I found out pretty quickly that there were going to be challenges in getting the personal care support I needed each day to get me ready in the morning.
The funding I was receiving in NSW wasn’t portable between states and had to start from scratch trying to get funding there.
I was told outright by Disability SA that they had no responsibility to help me and to move at my own risk.
Thankfully my years of involvement in politics gave me some good knowledge, resources and contacts and I was able to get 8 weeks of my supports covered by NSW when I first moved to allow me the time to get things in place there.
Even with some funding in place, finding an agency in the area with enough experienced workers to support me was not easy.
While I was organising all of this I had started packing up my house and each fortnight when the partner flew back to Adelaide I filled a suitcase for him to take back.
I posted a few boxes in the weeks ahead of the move and then my parents kindly packed up the rest of my stuff for the removalists to collect a couple of weeks later.
We’d found a place to rent and then I booked a one way ticket.
It was my first ever time on a plane. Pretty crazy huh?
And it was on this very day, 16th December, 13 years ago.
It was a whirlwind of emotions leaving my house for the last time then saying goodbye to my family at the airport.
I was pretty comfortable with the flight, wasn’t anxious even though there was a big storm and it was my first flight.
And a few hours later we were driving to our new place in the Adelaide Hills for the first time.
I had no job.
I didn’t know anyone except my partner.
I was geographically and socially isolated.
But I was optimistic and was prepared to do whatever I needed to do to make sure it was an excellent move to make.
The song that represents this time for me is “Wherever I May Roam” by Metallica.
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