First off, I was totally completely wrong about the Autumn thing.
HOO BOY was I wrong.

It is still very much hot-ass beastly humid summer here in Brisbane, with all the frizzy hair and sweaty eyelids that go with it.
When you grow up in a climate famous for rain, you totally romanticize warm climates with their sunny skies and, well why go past sunny skies?
It’s all just bragging after that really.
Growing up in Seattle I remember making an effort to never complain about the heat of summer, don’t take it for granted, savor it as best you can because during those nine months of grey that stretch from October all the way until June? You’re gonna rue the day you stayed inside to watch TV in July that one time when you were 6.

Anyway, still summer. Yes. I had a point.

I think I’ve been wanting a season change not just for a release from the life of eternal sweat-stache but also because a season is about four months and I know that the first four or five months after a move are the hardest part. The dreaded transition.

When the mister moved to the US, it took about four and a half months for us to figure out the basics. Who’s got what job, what bank accounts pay what bills, what shelves or chairs will make everyone feel like they have a hand and place in their home, enough knowledge of the neighborhood map that one person doesn’t feel totally reliant on the other and so on.
I knew in my mind that we were going to face this difficult period again. I knew that we were going to have many of the same arguments with the “Think of my position!” flipped around from him to me, but wow, living it sure is different from knowing it.

I’ve been getting desperate for a season change because yes, it’s brutally hot and that’s not very awesome, but also because omfg I’m so tired of being a beginner that has to ask my husband to explain everything from where that place is to what that guys means by that. Being a beginner totally sucks.

Our life back in New York was made easier on nearly every level by the fact that I earned a VERY healthy level of income for the amount of time I worked.
My work wasn’t easy and it ATE MY SOUL and rendered me useless during most of my off time, but I only had to work about 25-30 hours a week to earn it.
We had enough to never worry about paying for flights, for our wedding planned in a week, for the deposit on a rental or whatever really.
We weren’t rich by any stretch. I’ve guess I’ve just always been flat fucking broke so to go four or five years with enough money to buy any expensive cheese I want whenever I want, well, you get soft. When you have multi-thousands of dollars in savings and no real big expenses, you forget.

So we had this pretty substantial savings built up.
I knew that the move would bring an end to my position of significant cashflow, but I was excited!
I get to have a life! Overseas! I’m gonna be an expat! Look at me all glamorous and worldly!
I can go back to working in the arts because I don’t need to worry about health insurance in universal-health-care-having-Australia! HIGH FIVES ALL AROUND!

So we got here, got an apartment, bought some furniture and went out for lots of incredible Thai food. I was confident about getting a job and getting by and settling in.

But a month or so later when I ramped up the job-hunting efforts, nobody called. A couple emails here and there but nothing panned out.

I’ve never had a problem finding a job. Never. I’ve had more than one period in my life where I’ve had 3 or more jobs concurrently. I’ve learned to scale it back to avoid burnout, but for real, I’m one of those suckers that just likes a project.

By the holidays when it was clear I wasn’t even landing seasonal retail sales work, reality set in, our bank balanced loomed a lot lower than it has in recent history and the blow to my confidence was complete.

The last two months have seen a lot of moaning about homesickness on this website. Hindsight now shows me that although yeah, I really miss New York, most of what I’ve been feeling isn’t about that city or missing it.
It’s about having the basics. Rent paid. Food in the fridge. More than anything, the harmony and comfort of your relationship when everything is pretty much fine.
It’s not that I miss things back in Brooklyn, it’s that I miss having a relatively stress-free home life.

The mister and I still aren’t totally broke. We’re not quite at each other’s throats.
But the pressure. The pressure that we’re living a life unsustainable, that I MUST land a job or we’re going to be looking at a life of toil for him and serious brokenness for the both of us, well, that pressure is good enough.

A month ago I realized that my phone number has been incorrect on my resume this entire time. I hadn’t noticed because I hadn’t memorized it yet.
I can assure you that the magnitude of the meltdown I had that day blew fallout as far as northern New South Wales. Perhaps some of the South Pacific islands even felt ripples. It was that bad.

Suffice it to say, I did my best to backtrack on positions I had recently applied with and wonders that be, got a call the next day and was working four days later.

All this leads me to today. I’ve been working at in a local University bookshop as a start-of-term temporary employee. I’m currently on my third week of a four-week assignment.
Everyone knows the one of the biggest pains in the ass of getting a new job is getting on the goddamn pay schedule. It’s nearly impossible to get that magical timing where you start working and actually get paid something! anything! on the next payperiod. In my experience it takes two, sometimes three pay periods to actually get any freaking money flowing.

I’m not looking for a career in bookshop minding, but I’ve really been enjoying the job while I have it. The people there are all really great, the work environment is really organized and efficient, I get to chat all day and even the broke-ass students don’t seem that stressed out over their threefourfive hundred dollar textbooks.

Tonight as I was leaving another excellent day of work, the boss of the bookshop informed me and a coworker that due to university bureaucracy we wouldn’t receive even the start of our pay until a week after the entire assignment ENDS.
Oh wow, awesome. And stressful. Because now it matters. Now there isn’t enough savings to live on and yes the Mister is making money, but he gets paid in big chunks and another one isn’t due for probably around a month.

So yes, in short, YIKES.

As I walked off campus ignoring the stunning sunset and swirling of thousands of bats leaving their garden homes for the evening sky, I sent a frantic text message to my husband telling him of our impending brokeassity.

I reached the intersection and waited for the crosswalk signal to change and checked my email on my phone.
Inside was an offer. A position that I didn’t even apply for. I woman I met months ago, a friend of the Mister. A cool lady I’ve been trying to figure out how to make into my friend. She’s got a job for me, one I’m very excited about.

So I face a week or two of meetings. The hammering out of details. Figuring out schedules and all that. The Mister and I can limp along until the pay thing works itself out and that’s ok for once. Because now I’m back to that point of feeling that this year will be full opportunities and excitement.

It may not be Autumn yet, but it seems that the season is changing regardless.