If you told me 3 years ago, that this is where I’d be standing today, I wouldn’t have believed you. If you’ve been around for a while, or have read any of my previous blog posts, you’d probably know that in 2018 I spent 12 months living in Brisbane, working in an all-girls Boarding School. At 22, this was my first time living out of home and I spent the majority of that year incredibly homesick. I moved to the inner-north of the city and all of a sudden, had a greater understanding of what it meant to be living in a concrete jungle. In short: I detested Brisbane. Sure, I thoroughly enjoyed my job and I am so grateful for the doors it opened and the purpose it served, but I knew from the moment I moved that Brisbane was never going to be a forever home. 

I won’t bore you with the details of what I did between 2018 and now; but 3 years later, having had 3 different jobs in the meantime and having packed and unpacked my life 14 times, I find myself standing back in that same all girls boarding school. I’m in a different role and am so far loving it, but there is this peculiar sense of same-same but different. 

I can’t work out whether this is a ‘new beginning’ or whether I’m just hitting ‘play’ on a period of my life that I’d previously ‘paused’. I don’t feel like I’m starting again, but at the same time, I don’t feel like I’m picking up where I left off. I don’t particularly have anything profound to say, nor any life lessons to bestow. Except that I am a very different person to the graduate teacher who stood in this place 3 years ago and I’m proud of that. After all, that’s the point of evolution and development. We shift and we change, and we (hopefully) become better people. Is this where I expected life would lead me? Heck no. Am I happy to be here for this season? Absolutely.