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Today is the fifteenth of May 2012. There is nothing especially significant about today but it is today, and I suppose there are few more important days. I'm sitting in Sydney airport waiting on my flight to Perth and watching the dregs of my laptop battery dwindle. It is nearly five months since I last wrote a blog post. I've been hidden away in small town Australia working night shifts at a winery, slaving away and selling my soul for the dollar. It never ceases to surprise me how, when all is said and done, when you look back on a time in your life, it is usually the good you focus on. I didn't enjoy my work at Casellas – it was dull, mind-numbing and monotonous, but I don't look back on it as a disappointment, or a waste of time. Firstly, I made good money that will sustain my modest means for a while to come and hopefully take me to many new and wondrous places. Secondly, I met good people, some of whom I'd hope to meet again and others who I probably won't. That is something I've noticed about myself recently. I feel little pain or regret
in goodbyes anymore. I don't know if I've grown colder or whether I've just accepted that moments pass and friendships fade. These people were an important part of my last months in Griffith; we had good nights in shitty clubs, we created a community at the hostel and at times, especially early on, it felt special. But in my heart I always knew these friends, and the basis of everything we had there, was rooted in our context. We'd all been thrown together, into shared flats and the same job, and expected to make the most of it. So we started drinking together, we played football together, we ate together, we slept together. We built memories with one another, but I always knew that without Griffith all this camaraderie could not exist. We all had our own lives we were taking a break from to recharge our bank accounts, we all had other plans and once the Vintage was finished we would be setting off on them. Towards the end relationships soured and as people grew tired of the town, and of working, as people yearned for their freedom, they retreated to their own flats and cliques emerged. It lies
in the nature of a traveller to look after themselves, it is one of the first key skills you learn. But this in turn makes you more selfish, more ruthless and less sympathetic. Saying that, I found a clutch of good friends who I already have vague plans to see again. My last and final reason for being grateful to Griffith for the last five months is called Ricarda Schatz. I could never have imagined I would, in that deadbeat town, meet someone I cared about so much and who really understood me and, more impressively, accepted me for exactly who I am. We met eighteen weeks ago and have been together for most of that time. What is unique about her is that, unlike every other “relationship” I can remember, we only grow closer and happier with every day we spend together. I don't know what the future holds for us, September looms like the blackest cloud, but I know we're happy now, and all either of us can do is enjoy the months we have together and try desperately not to flirt too much with the idea of what could be.
Today is the fifteenth of May.
I'm in Sydney airport, waiting on my flight to Perth and my laptop battery is flashing bloody murder at me. Ricarda is still in Melbourne, where we said goodbye two days ago and spent the last week together. She is flying to America to visit her sister who recently moved there with her husband. In Perth I am meeting up with a good friend from Casella (he is racing across the desert as I type) and from there we'll drive up the wild West Coast. I'm already dreaming of the open road and a shining sun. I'm going to get off the plane, put on my shorts and live out of them for the next six weeks. T-shirts and footwear only when necessary. The side of the road will be my home once more. I'm excited to live rough again, to bum around and live off scraps, to tear into towns, drink them dry and race out of them the next morning. The aim is Darwin, where I will see Ricarda again at the end of June, but there is a whole lot on the way first – new places, old friends and one long long road.
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