May the Odds be ever in your favour.... and don't F**k it up!
Powerful words to live by. It's currently a Wednesday afternoon in Melbourne. I have the dryer on madly doing laundry as I edit footage from my farewell show and procrastinate from the inevitable task of deciding what I am going to take with me on my journey as I (wait for it) MOVE TO ICELAND!!!
Yep that's what I'm doing. Am I crazy? Quite possibly. Do I have any idea what I'm doing? Probably not; but in all honesty things couldn't get any worse. 2015 has been without a doubt the worst year of my life so far. It has been full of unnecessary surprises and a whole range of times where there is no better way to explain things other than by saying "The universe basically shat on me." And not just shat. Not just like a regular dump. It has been like a diaorreah sundae complete with extra shitty topping, served in a shitty glass by a massive turd.
There is a great Australian saying, "You can't polish a turd." Well this is true, you can't, but you can roll it in glitter and that is exactly what I am doing.
Four years ago I ticked an item off my bucket list visiting Iceland. It was amazing. The country, the landscape, the people. All of it was incredible. It was also the first time in a very long time that I felt at home straight away. I had spend quite some time living places and not really feeling like I was at home because there was always this temporary nature to the current arrangement. On leaving Iceland I joked that if my husband ever died, I would pack up and move there. So flash forward 4 years and the breakup of my marriage (technically we were engaged and after 9 years together boyfriend sounds weird) and I decided to do just that.
No I am not about to talk about all the details of the break up between Vincent and myself. That is between us; at least until a great book deal comes along (kidding) (not really kidding, I'm divorced and unemployed, a dolla make me holla). All you need to know is that we are no longer together. We still love each other immensely. You can't just switch that off. He's my best friend and has been for the last 9 years so that's not going to change.
All of that aside, when the reality of the breakup hit me and it came to that awkward logistic conversation of, "So what are you going to do now?" It occurred to me that I couldn't stay in Melbourne and not go insane. I love this city so much, but I have a lot of healing to do and can't do it here. As a Queenslander, my family asked if I would be "coming home." It was then that I realised that Queensland hasn't been home for quite some time. If I was going to stay in Australia, it would be in Melbourne.
Why couldn't I stay here and heal? Well it all started when I began looking for apartments in my price range. I was looking for single apartments in the Balaclava area. I have lived there for the last 3 years, why should I have to move to another part of town just because I got divorced? I trawled realestate.com.au for hours and realised something I had never noticed before. Single life is depressing from the get go. Single people apartments look like prison cells. At least in prison you have the comfort of another person in the room and the prospect of some aggressive sex every now and then. Nope single people apartments seem to be designed to let you know that your life is horrible. They have no space to move in, they have kitchenettes (a word that means it's not actually a kitchen, it's sort of like a kitchen but it's not one), and the thing that really gets me is that the fridge space can only ever accommodate a mini bar fridge. Basically single people are going to never be at home to eat. They're not going to cook. They're just going to come home, masturbate and drink wine, and this is why they don't need a proper fridge.
So when this looked like my future, I decided that I might take a look at another option. I decided to get away from it all to find myself; and you can't get much further away from Australia than Iceland.
Welcome to my "Eat, Gay, Love." This blog is where I will share some of these experiences and eventually (after August 14) where you can read all about what it is like to be an Australian living in Iceland.
I've got some big things planned so watch this space!
Jono Out. xoxo