“I don’t think I belong here anymore”

I felt as though I needed to tell Amber what had happened on that softball trip. Some may think that nothing happened! I felt guilty and was confused about how I was feeling. I wanted to be with Amber but I think I liked the fact that someone else was showing an interest in me.

After talking to Amber on the phone she said she was coming home early and said I needed to decide what I wanted and if I chose her, I needed to cut all contact with the other person, otherwise, the relationship was over. A day or so later Amber was back in Paraburdoo and before she had come home I said I wanted to be with her and would do anything I needed to do. It took a little while but we ended up back on track.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I was starting to hate this town I was living in. It felt like Amber and I was starting again and I didn’t like that the whole town and the Northwest itself held so many bad memories. I was also still really struggling with work and was wanting to get out of the industry. I knew that if I left my job before and after school, I would also have to leave town as my house was in a package with the job. This meant I could keep the house if I kept the job or be homeless with a different job, or we could just move out of town. I spoke to Amber and we quickly decided that we didn’t think we belonged in this small town anymore and it was time to pack up and head back to Perth.

It sounds easy, let’s pack up and go. Well, it wasn’t that easy. We had to decide where we wanted to live, find a rental, and what the hell was I going to do for a job? I really didn’t know if I wanted to go back to child care, but also didn’t know what else I was capable of doing… I only KNEW child care.

The boss I had at my old centre had asked me to come back and work for her as she has two girls going on maternity leave in November. She didn’t know how long I’d have the position for but at least a couple of months to decide what I wanted to do with myself (somehow I got sucked back in and have stayed in the industry!) I figured it made sense to do this and now we just needed to sort out where to live.

We looked at places on the Internet and applied for a couple of rentals. We were turned away because we had not sighted the properties. How could we from 1600kms away?? We managed to finally apply for one through a real estate who couldn’t be bothered and said we had the place. It was available in two weeks. There was no way we could organize everything in two weeks. We decided to take it anyway and pay rent on the empty house until we could get there. I gave a months notice at work and started packing.

Once we had everything sorted we told the two of our closest friends. They were upset and we were too. As much as we wanted to leave, we knew we would miss some of the lovely people we had met, and of course the family we had living there. We ended up having a going away party and enjoyed saying goodbye to some amazing people. It was all becoming real! I was nervous but really looking forward to being close to my family again.

Work was upset that I was leaving but I didn’t care anymore. I felt if they had wanted me to stay, they could have supported me earlier on. Pretty much until the day I left they were begging me to stay until the Christmas school holidays. They even offered me very good pay if I did. I felt bad for the parents I was leaving in the lurch but was also so ready to move on. I couldn’t have stayed anyway as I already had a new job lined up.

Our friend had said she would come with us on our road trip back to Perth. Amber would be driving the furniture truck and I would drive the car and our friend would take it in turns to keep us both company. She stayed with us for a little while to help us settle into our new place. It was nice to have someone help us transition from country town to Perth.

Before I knew it, it was time to start my new job, at my old workplace, with the staff I had previously worked with. I was nervous as it had been two years since I had worked with most of these girls and not everything was the same anymore. I settled in fairly quickly and ended up being offered a full-time job by the new owners that took over early in 2009.

Amber was finding it difficult to find a job, people were losing their jobs and nobody wanted to hire at the time. She managed to get a casual job for a short period but was then told that after Christmas she was no longer needed. This was hard as we were starting to think about trying for another baby since we were now back in Perth and close to our donor.

We decided we would go ahead with trying for a baby if the donor was still keen and Amber would also keep looking for a job. We would just see what happened and what the world had planned for us. As it turned out, the world was apparently still against us.