4 year Perthiversary

Today is 4 years since I jumped on a plane and moved over 2000km across the Nullarbor Plain (that’s a big desert for you non-Aussie folk) from Melbourne to Perth.

I was somewhat on an adventure, and somewhat escaping life.  I was not in a happy place at the time and Perth became my happy place.

I met a fantastic boy the day I arrived. He picked me up from the airport and held me tight like he already knew me. He didn’t, we met on Myspace (yes, remember Myspace?) and had chatted online for 8 months. I didn’t move here to be with him. I needed to escape from Melbourne and he needed a housemate in Perth, so it just strangely fell into place. And yes, it was a little bit crazy. But exactly what I needed. If you didn’t already guess, that boy was Matt. It took us about a month of living together to work out we should be ‘together’, and we haven’t looked back.

Since then, I’ve lived in two houses and had one housemate, other than Matt.

I have lived with two sweet rats called Jet and Blue, then a blue kitten called Maisie, then another blue kitten called Daisy and then a string of foster cats and kittens, and then three guinea pigs called Pip, Gertrude and Iris, a couple of visitor guinea pigs called Fluffy and Chad, and most recently a sweet black kitten called Zelda.

I’ve been on two holidays with the boy, one to Denmark, an amazing little town in southern Western Australia, and a trip back home to Victoria. And I’ve been on another two trips back home to Victoria on my own.

My Mum has been to visit three times, my Dad twice, my little brother once, and my big sister will be here for the second time on Thursday (eeeee!!).

I’ve had two jobs, one at a service station and the other a traineeship at the botanic gardens in Perth. I finished my Certificate III in Conservation and Land Management at Tafe while working there, and learned the names of countless plants, but I would estimate it was about a squillion.

There have been five blogs, the first had one post, the next two had none, the forth went for a little while and was transferred here. And here I will stay.

Three hospital visits were made, one for me and two for Matt, one being when he had his appendix out on Christmas Day.

One self-diagnosis of gluten intolerance. One boy deciding to be vegan.

One car crashed into my house and I had one mental breakdown. A million doctors visits and one fantastic psychologist.

And (at least) two life epiphanies; that making things can be my job, but looking after me is the most important job of all.