Day five on the road and its starting to sink in. Although, leaving round two felt a lot more real than leaving round one. Currently we’re in Middleton, a cute little surf town a couple of hours south of Adelaide. While I’d like to say we’re going to get the surfboards wet, the chances are slim as the waves are out of this gals range. Nonetheless, it’s nice to be here. Nice to be away, nice to have made it out of Victoria, and nice to be headed west finally.

The car ended up punching a hole in the hip pocket slightly larger than I had ever intended, and as much as I’d like to blame the mechanic who serviced my car months ago for not picking up on the problems, realistically, if I do my root cause analysis, I should have had a mechanic look at it before buying it. “But the seller was so friendly!” she cries. Which is absolutely true. I was also in  FOMO rush to get a 4WD and blinded by love at first sight when I test drove the car while dreams of what it could be played out in my head. Neither of these should excuse due diligence, and the voice of my father is forever in my head playing out ominously like a dark rain cloud with a deep ghostly vibrato, “You should have told meeee, I could haaave heelped youuu”. Surely being 28 at the time I should’ve been able to buy a car by myself – right? It was a lesson learned, and I paid the price, but all that aside I now have the exact thing I was hoping for and I’m looking forward to seeing just how the set up evolves along the way.

Leaving home was really difficult. I was working in a job that since graduating uni I had always wanted, the people I worked with were incredible and tanks of knowledge, and the work that I was doing really made a difference – not just to a few, but to many. Leaving the family behind was harder. Growing up, like many we didn’t have your typical nuclear family and we somewhat disjointed and disconnected from each other while we tried to navigate the emotional, financial and hormonal tsunamis. And although covid really put a spanner in the works on my previous adventure, I would never take back the last 18 months. We reconnected in a way that I honestly just never thought was possible. I moved in with my dad and got to know him on an adult to adult level. Learned about his taste in music, his hobbies, what his life was like pre-kiddos, and also the things that make him tick (for example, anything that is less than perfect). I then finally re-left the nest and moved into a humble little home just around the corner from my sister and her little family, including the two current loves of my life –  my niece and nephew. Never have I felt love like I do when I wrap my knuckles on their door and I hear their screams “ITS AUNTY KEERRYYN! MUM ITS AUNTY KERRYN! QUICK OPEN THE DOOR!”. Oof, that’s enough to make my heart swell so big I’m surprised my ribs are still intact. 

Although this year has had many hurdles for me, more so than previous years, strangely everything has felt as though it was meant to happen. Whether that is me realigning with universe and its flow, or me following gut instinct and rediscovering the moral compass that I’d lost. Either way, this move, this adventure across country has felt like the right thing to do. I have no idea what the next 12 months will bring and for the first time in my adult life I feel as though I’m letting go the urge to control that destiny. Shortly after making the decision to do this, I had a dream about a snake constricting itself around a rafter of the house I was living in. By the end of the dream, the snake had released itself from the rafter and coiled itself in my arms. Make of that what you will.

Here is a beautiful song by a beautiful artist about moving onto better things. Allow you ears this pleasure.