h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of my favourite Queen songs is called Leaving Home. It means even more to me now that the fact that I moved out of home close to 4 months now.

I turned 24 a month after I had left home, and at the most I had spent 10 weeks away from home on a Research Scholarship, but I knew I was going back. I had never spent any other time away from the comforts of home, and now I really miss it.

The average person would move out of home, but stay in the same city as their parents, however I moved out of the same city. I didn't just moved a couple of hundred kms away, I moved 3000kms away.

Unlike in Europe, and other continents, travelling 3000kms in Australia can mean you are still in Australia. I am 2 states away from home, but it is an almighty drive home, and fairly expensive flight back.

I used to live in Townsville, Queensland where the population is about 160,000 people. I know live in Melbourne, Victoria where the population numbers in the millions. Sometimes it has been quite a lonely 4 months, and it is just too far to go back home.

Some people are happy to leave home because their home was not a happy one. My home was a happy one as my parents are still together, my oldest sister and her husband had just moved back to the same city, and my other sister and her husband just moved into home after I left. We are a close family, and the troubles of distance sometimes gets to me. I sometimes long to be back in Townsville with the comforts of home.

I now how a life in Melbourne that I would not trade to go back home, but there are times that it would be so lovely to be able to see my mum and my dad, and the love of my life, my 4 year old niece Anglea.

Life does go on, and we do develop new friends, and with the friends I have met down here I have been able to get a job, and I now have the money to fly back home. As at the writing of this journal entry I actually paid for a flight back to see my family for the Queen's Birthday long weekend. It will be great to see them. 

I clicked on this because of the Queen song (one of my favourites too) and its relevance to me right now - i have been desperately trying to find a flat for about three months, but there is little around - i can kind of appreciate your sentiments, however i don't think i'll be feeling them until after i've left. It will be so nice to be independent - after all i've lived with the same people in the same house for nearly twenty two years. I think the most i've ever been away from home without one of my parents is ten days. However I'm just looking at moving across the city, not nearly as far as you. I couldn't move that far - whose dryer would I use then?

Well I hope you find a place soon. It may take a little while to get used to living away from home, but it was the best thing I have done for a long time. I am now free and independant, which is a great feeling.

As for who's dryer you will use, that reminds me when I went back to Townsville recently where I took all my dirty washing home. Mum saw the funny side, and I did the washing myself.

Actually out of the blue it looks like we found a place today (yay!) and it doesn't really have room for a dryer so i guess i'll have to make the trek home from time to time

It gets easier:
I have been out for about 6 years now (wow it didn't seem that long) and have been through a few different flatting/boarding/subsistence/pasitic/symbiotic/camping/trainspotting/busshelter/underabridge situations and have arrived in a fairly comfortable villa, populated by seven others (including our 2 cats and a dog) who share the same interests (except for the dog) and hobbies.
We even have a drier. . .

That's good to hear (about the house and the dryer)

It was like how we got our place. We were looking for a place that would take a dog, and for 3 weeks no luck, then the following weekend we found 4 place.

*smiles* Well I hope I don't have such an adventurous life. Any the worst of it is over. It's getting closer to 5 months now, and I really don't miss home any more.