Melbourne
Melbourne! Well I’m here. There is something about returning to my home town, the place where I grew up that is soothing to my soul. It’s interesting because it’s a part of my identity and travelling here is going back to my roots. It feels a like a pilgrimage to come back here. These trips are also like markers. When I first left Australia, I use to come every year in the European summer break - Melbourne winter and so it did really represent a year of my life. These days it has been every two years and now in summer for Christmas. It’s the middle of a European year, but it is a marker all the same. I use the time also to really reflect on where I am at, what I have achieved and where to now. There are always so many questions to answer and the time, space and support in being around my family and familiar comfortable surroundings really do help.
In being in Melbourne, there is something more that I connect with here that is much deeper than the people I see and spend time with. It’s familiar and reassuring. I have now lived half my life away from this country in Europe. The experiences and adventures I have had since I moved away have built my life as it is now, but there are places, sights smells and a warmth here that I will never cease to love. The light in summer is breathtaking and bright. The sun thaws and warms my heart. I love the brown dry climate and the ruggedness of the Australian bush. And then there is the space. The sense that space is limitless, unbounded and a perception of physical freedom. I always have a much better connection with space here, being able to run or move without feeling that the wall is close by.
After such a long time away and such infrequent visits of late, my connections here and friendships have suffered. Like anything they need effort if there is to be any growth and I just haven’t been putting that effort in. But I do really appreciate the time I spend with my family here. I also notice that I read the body language of people easier in Australia. It’s so familiar and tells me a lot more about how people think and feel. It is of course what I grew up with!
There are some values in my life that are the same and also some that have changed. As I reassess many parts of my life, I realise that I have changed and evolved from certain ideals that (a big generalisation) people here find important. It’s not good or bad, just different. It is what makes me Matthew and is unique coming from my own personal experience that no-one else has had. There is more to this thought too.
Living in a country that is not the one I grew up in, there is a part of me that finds myself not being/identifying with either here or there. Yet it hasn’t really ever bothered me either. As I left I always saw the move to a new country/continent as an adventure which life in itself is anyway. And the richness of this experience has meant that I have lived more and seen more and grown by being in different places at different times. I get back to needing to connect to Australia as an anchor point and needing to visit, yet I am rarely “homesick”. Perhaps the best way to describe it is, it is like a well that now and then needs replenishing. A source of inspiration to draw on that’s there when I need it.
Coming from Melbourne, there is something too about being in a big vibrant city. It really resonates with me. The energy of the place that has a buzz and a life of its own. There is also a certain anonymity when going around, as well as a sense of endless possibility. But it is the drive that really inspires me like a vortex. A faster pace of life that sits better with my natural rhythm. It’s also something to think about!
Growing up in this country I was instilled with the belief that I could do or be anything I desired. That anything is possible. A growth mindset. Somewhere along the line fixed thoughts came in that limited my imagination. Perhaps it was me taking on outside prejudice or the thoughts of others, or even just trying to conform or seek acceptance. Or perhaps not taking failure well or even a lack of desire to push further against resistance when things didn’t work the first time. Leaving Australia didn’t reverse this change in thought process directly but it did offer new opportunities that I am forever thankful for. And it’s never too late to go back to a growth mindset which I am doing. Ironing out limiting habitual thought processes and beliefs!
Though my home is somewhere else, over 16k km away, visiting this place reminds me that I will forever, as in the haunting words of Peter Allen’s song “still call Australia home” .