Just Gorgeous...pardon the pun!
Last weekend was pure bliss...and it was something of an anomoly for us as a family. we had the weekend off. Together. And it was Magic!
We explored Ormiston Gorge together...we walked and sang and played and just absorbed privately the surrounding beauty of the ochre coloured walls and the azure blue sky. We ate our picnic of salad sandwiches and winter fresh mandarins and chatted to the cheeky magpies that hopefully darted in between our legs trying to find crumbs. We made it home in time for a special treat...rock wallaby feeding at sunset at the Gap. The kids beamed with delight at the close encounter with such delightful teddy bear like creatures. They held their hands with their little chubby paws and nibbled the food out of their palms greedily. I looked over to my husband and we shared a moment. Our family felt really connected....& it made me realise what we had been missing all these years, and how it was meant to be.
You see, like many others we have been through a sort of hell in the last few years and realised sadly that if we stayed and clung to the dream that was not to be, we would lose so much more than our finances. Our long dreamed of 'treechange' went horribly wrong. It was so close and yet so far....we would work and work and work at it but it still didnt fit. It was like trying to push a square peg into a round hole. Things kept going wrong. I suffered a back injury at work and hubby's job contract at the uni came to an end and he was not even formally advised...just a whisper on the grapevine.....and it hurt like hell. We fell into a black hole and it felt like we were all slowly being pulled apart. What the hell were we going to do...this droned on and on in our minds like an evil mantra, consuming our every thought and taking over our precious family time. The black dog ended up eating our cheque book and left us with all the bills, and he barked at the kids. We growled at each other. It was a horrible, scary, bleak time...and I never want to revisit it.
But one rare night while we enjoying each others company over a glass of wine, we managed to move past that ugly defeating mantra and we shared our innermost scary thoughts with each other. Then we cried, we hugged and then when the tears slowed we dared to dream together again.
You know when you have that AHA moment, where suddenly everything is clarified? Well, we realised our dream wasn't our dream at all. Nice as it was, we finally came to admit that the conventional life was not for us and we began to embrace our inner Gypsies and dreamt of heading off around Australia with the kids. But we hadn't won lotto...and so it was not to be. I am not sure about you but I have a lot of faith in Mother Universe and while I am prone to forgetting and fits of anxiety (ok ok.... bordering hysteria) as we handle the daily battleground...a few months later she answered us. Hubby had been offered his dream job.....in Alice Springs.
*SCREEEEEECH* tyres halting.
Hold up there Buddy...WHAT THE HELL? But Hubby had a few words to say too, hadn't we both pored over the pictures and dreamed of exploring the outback together as a family? Sure sure, but I thought we were going to be footloose and fancy free..and what about my family...are all within Cooee here now, and we are so close. I cant imagine living without them. BUT he countered with a low blow. We aren't really living. My heart ached. I couldn't argue. Stay and continue to fight this losing battle...or regroup and take a family adventure together...give ourselves time to heal and listen to our hearts. Time to absorb the ageless beauty of the Central Australian Outback.
A few short days in between and I was sold.
The kids.....lets just say were less than enthusiastic, "we're not moving to the Desert!!!"
And so we began the hard sell.
And then even I began to get excited about the idea...and started hunting for information about the area. There wasn't much and most of it left me wondering desperately if we were mad moving our family to such a 'wild' and 'dangerous' town.
And then the crushing moment when I broke the news to my parents...my Mum still healing from emergency heart surgery a few months before....and I am sure we both felt that karate blow to the chest as we looked into each others eyes and realised there was no other answer.
But...fast forward to today, we have lived here for 4 months and while I am homesick for family (and the beaches in Mid North Coast NSW) I know after moments like the past weekend that we are where we need to be. So please join us on our healing journey, I will share what I learn as we travel through this beautiful country...
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