I got a job today.
It’s nothing too thrilling, just a short-term position at a local university bookstore, but it’s something and I’m relieved. Perhaps I can exhale now. Perhaps I can let myself just be here, for however long that is.

The Mister and I have been tossing around some loose plans for what we hope to happen over the next two years. Nothing is etched in stone, but there will likely be a reunion with our tiny fifth floor apartment in Brooklyn as well as time spent on the west coast of the US. Topping this mental timeline off is the clearing of our dotted-around-the-world storage units and setting up a home in a city new to both of us.

Nothing is confirmed, but I find security in some sort of plan, however loose it may be.

It’s so strange to think of having a real home that isn’t Seattle, the city of my youth, or New York, the city of my adulthood. Brisbane is where we live, but it’s not our home.
Just after we arrived in Brisbane, we moved into our little apartment and the Mister caught me daydreaming. “Live in Brisbane for a year and see then what you really think about staying”.
Two months later, I see his point.
Despite the mangoes and the frangipani, the evenings sitting in the backyard grass, despite the beautiful outdoor pool where I float on my back and the sky is blue forever, despite all these things that I love, this isn’t our city. This isn’t our home.

I’ve been going though a bit of a rough spot lately. Homesick for New York and heartsick for the friends and family left behind. I have no regrets about coming here. It’s a given that I will wholeheartedly do whatever is necessary to support my husband in the persual of his career but there is no comparison to friends that have known and loved you for years or the city that has literally everything.

I don’t want to go back in time, I’m simply trying to find my way forward on a very new road. Step one: get a job.

Step two: I have no idea.

While the world around me celebrated the New Year! New Decade! I seem to have stood by with a blank look.
This was the first New Years Eve in a very long time that I did not spend working.
Bartenders refer to it as amateur night, and if like me, you work in an establishment where your bread and butter is regulars, it could also be an enormous amount of work for a relatively meager financial reward.
I’m no longer a member of the service industry though and as such I was able to spend my New Years at home with my husband doing pretty much nothing.

As I read the blog entries, text messages and emails of friends and family, I’ve realized that other people actually feel something on New Years. And wow. I don’t. How embarrassing.
My feelings for the holiday aren’t grinchy. I don’t dislike it on any level. It’s just kinda, oh, there.
It inspires me with excitement equal to what I feel on flag day.
Do other people feel magic and hope?
Really?

The only thing we celebrated that night was our long-awaited reconnection to the internet. THAT was exciting.

I love holidays. Thanksgiving and Birthdays are HUGE to me. Halloween is a giant fun party, and Valentine’s may be over-marketed, but the heart is still in the right place.
I think that my problem with New Years is that I simply don’t acknowledge it as the beginning of my year.
When I reflect on my personal history, I never say I finished college in 2001 or met my husband in 2007. I finished college when I was 22 and I was 27 when I met the man I refer to as Mister.

My birthday is in January, so my personal point of year change is admittedly pretty close to the Roman calendar version but regardless those two weeks between the 1st of January and the 17th still remain a bit of a no-zone for me.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I don’t make resolutions. Birthday goal/plan lists yes, but resolutions no.
I’ve been working on my goal list for the upcoming year and high on it is exploring Australia.
We have no clue how long/if we’ll be living here beyond the next 12 months so just in case this is it, I want to see some things.

Specifically, these things:

photo via mrdehoot’s flickr

The Glasshouse Mountains.

A flat plain punctuated by the cores of volcanos extinct 27 million years. “Discovered” by Captian Cook in 1770, Aboriginal people considered them a family (with the tallest peak as the mother) that’s suffered from some serious discord.
Mt. Beerwa, the previously mentioned mother mountain is 556 meters/1,824 feet tall and takes approximately 4 hours to climb up and back down.
I’ve done a fair bit of hiking in my life, but no actual climbing. According to the internet, it’s mostly a hike with a short, easy climb section that requires no special gear.
The mountains are located about an hour’s drive north of where we currently live, and I’m excited to give them a go.

photo via msdstefan’s flickr

Sydney Opera House.

I know. I KNOW.
Maybe it’s cheesy, but it’s also a beautiful and iconic.
The mister tells me that when it was built people loathed it. Now? well, now to say there is some pride in the most famous architecturally edgy building in the world is putting it a BIT lightly.
I hear that the opera house is actually functionally pretty crappy. You know, for Opera purposes. I don’t care and want to see it anyway.

photo via shastadaisy’s flickr

Opium poppy fields in Tasmania.

Don’t worry, this opium is farmed for pharmaceutical purposes so is not likely to be patrolled with automatic weapons like I presume most poppy fields are in the world.
I actually had no idea that this was something I wanted to see until I started searching for photos of Tasmania. Even though I’ve never taken an opiate in my life and have really no interest in doing so, I think a poppy field is definitely worth seeing. Really though, I just want to see the rumored wonderfulness that is regular non-drug-related Tasmania.
Such as this:

photo via shastadaisy’s flickr

photo via jasoncward’s flickr

A kangaroo in the wild.

Some friends of mine traveled to Australia a couple years back for a bike messenger event and saw loads of kangaroos from the car. I’ve lived here for months and I’ve only seen the roadkill versions.
I’ve never seen anything more impressive than a moose in real life (and even that was in yellowstone where you have to be blind to NOT see a moose) so it’s time I saw something good. I’m way behind on seeing my fair share of animals.

What do you think of this new year beeswax?

Do you measure your years by the calendar? By your age? Pivotal events? lunar cycles?
.