Me, Myself and My Home

I haven’t written in years. And so much has happened that I thought I’d catch you all up. 

I left the LAS and the UK behind, moving back to Australia wanting to be closer to my family and home, but I realise now that home really is where you hang your hat, it’s is where the heart is, and I have moved so many times and I still have some more to do, so I’ve made myself my home. 

I know I’ve written about the mines before so I’ll keep it quick. When I got back to Aus soil, I had to keep up my Paramedic registration so I had to work as a paramedic somewhere. It was taking far too long to get into a state service so I started a paramedic position in the mines in Central Queensland. It also required me to get my Cert III Mines Rescue qualification, so I’ve done a ropes course, extinguished fires and cut up cars with hydraulic tools. I went to the gym 5 days a week, waking up at 1.45am on day shifts, gym from 2-3, then getting to work by 4.45, working 5am-5pm, then dinner and bed. Night shifts had me waking at 1.45pm, gym from 2-3, getting to work by 4.45, working 5pm-5am, then breakfast and bed. I must say, that really sad routine was pretty fun for a while. I absolutely loved the gym. I was making so much progress as well, I was the fittest I had ever been in my life. And not just physically, mentally as well. I was doing a 5-10 minute meditation daily before work, I was writing a reflection journal daily as well. I was feeling amazing. The work was dull, but the colleagues and workplace drama was great. If your life is small, then you make a bigger deal out of small problems and create drama to entertain you. So that was my 2019. And then Covid hit.

My Covid Story

Everyone has their own traumatic Covid story, and I’m really tired of the competition of ‘my covid story was the worst’, ‘no, mine was’, ‘well actually…’ 

How can you compare trauma? No one had a great time. Everyone was without. We were all away from what was important to each of us. Some were away from family and friends, some missed going to work and the hustle and bustle of life outside. This is just my story. 

In order to keep my job, I had to drive from Melbourne to Blackwater before the state borders closed, so once the news hit I had about 3 days to decide if I wanted to move, then pack my life into my car and hit the road. I lived there for 6 months, packing up and moving every 7 days; when I was working, I’d live in a mining camp, and on my days off I lived at an inn 3 blocks down the road. If it weren’t for the two other paras from Melbourne and Adelaide in the same position as me, I would have lost my mind. I’ll forever be grateful to those girls. And to the owner of the inn, Ernie, this crazed older man who just wants to be loved. And I think living in captivity in regional Qld, when all three of us were city people, messed us up for a while there. We felt trapped, watching the news reports with bated breaths every week, hoping that we could go home soon. Soon. Always soon, but never actually. By October, Jas from Adelaide could go home and work, Dee and I moved to the Gold Coast, and flew to work every week, and then flying back to the coast to live some semblance of life. We lived in a long-term air bnb for 3 months. We tried hot yoga, walking every day, just something to shake life into us. We were both home for Christmas. And then covid restrictions in Aus continued to get tighter, loosen, borders went up, down, for the next 6 months into 2021. 

Living out of a suitcase, moving from Melbourne to a hotel in Brisbane city a few times for my week off. I think I lost Dee somewhere at this point, she was working at a few places and we just never lined up in the same city at the same time. I was able to spend a few days with her in Sydney (where she worked at the time) before she had to fly off somewhere for work and I had to run back home to Melbourne that night all of a sudden bc they just announced the number of covid cases had risen and we could spidey-sense that they would shut borders that night, so I packed my suitcase, booked the next flight out and took off. Restrictions were only from Sydney to Melbourne though so I could go back to Queensland. It was such a mess. I was a mess. I hated living out of a suitcase. I hated that I was a paramedic on paper but not working on road for a state service. It took me listening to BTS’s album Map of the Soul and reading up on the ties to Jung’s theory of the same name to realise that being a paramedic was only one part of my story, only one of my personas, but unfortunately that realisation and proceeding happiness came too late, and I had already messed up a few friendships. To that one person in particular, you know who you are (you’re probably not even reading this), I’m truely sorry and would love to go back to how things were before. 

This absolute nonsense of moving around every two seconds continued until I got a job with QAS in about July and found out I’d be living and working in Rockhampton. 

Once I started back on road I felt like a fish out of water, I had forgotten so much but slowly, most things came back to me. Except for that burnout, I refuse to feel as angry as I did at the public in London. The general public need educating as to what constitutes an emergency and when an ambulance is required. Having said that, it’s also GPs and more respected members of the public that also treat us like a free taxi service. These days, we’re no longer an Emergency Service, we’re a Health Care Service. And you can’t cure ‘stupid’, so why should I get angry? If someone requires a therapeutic 6hr wait in the hospital waiting room, who am I to deprive them of that. No, you do not get seen faster if brought in by us. You get triaged and join the exact same queue as those who take themselves. 

I Bought a House...

I lived in a share house for 6 months before I bought a house. 

I own a house now. I don’t feel ‘adult’ enough to own a house. I make up everything as I go, I’m filling it with stuff and pay my bills on time, and yeah, I own a house. I have a reading room that I’m filling with all my books and Kpop memorabilia and comfy pillows, blankets, beanbags, some plants, candles and lamps. It’s a cozy little hole I crawl into and disappear for a few hours and 16yo Patrice would have loved it.

The rest of my decor is kinda like it was decorated by a mediterranean coastal grandmother. I love timber, it's wooden everything for me. I have a wooden coat rack that hold sone hat and a fake plant, it looks cute I swear. I have a cute wooden dining table and matching tv unit and coffee table that I use as a foot rest but only I can do that bc I bought it, no one else is allowed to do that. You pay me for the cost of it, then maybe I'll allow you. I have adult monies now and omg how is everything so expensive?! When I'm lying in bed at night and you hear something creak or move in the house and you pray it's a ghost bc if something breaks I just don't have the money to fix it. A globe in the lounge room flickers every now and then... it hasn't popped completely so I guess I don't have to replace it yet, yay. And my love of fairy lights has hit the house too. I have two trees inside with lights at the end of every branch, super cute, and this green garland I wrapped fairy lights around and popped over my back door. Love love love. Warm white fairy lights only please, and thank you. 

It always smells like I’m cooking something good here or have lit a really expensive candle that I’m no longer saving for special occasions, I’m my own special occasion. And I have so many indoor plants! I need more though, I want to fill this place with plants. Pack it to the rafters! I can't see my rafters so pack it to the low, cream ceiling! The lawn out the back is 100% weeds, so I’m enjoying my time killing all of those, I do need to spray them again actually. Once they’re all dead I might look at grass seeds. Oh and I planted little herbs in pots too on my patio which is pretty cute as well, I have little white Adirondack chairs and lots more plants. I need a screen though to block out the afternoon summer sun. I hate Rocky in summer. 

Oh and I’m back to travelling! My passport got a decent work out in a 6 month period. Last year in June I finally went to the States to visit Alex and had an amazing road trip, in September I went to South Korea with a friend of mine, in November I was in a friend’s wedding in Hawaii and then in February this year I went to Brazil to watch Berni in Carnaval. My next entry will be about these, I think. There’s so much to say!

So yeah, now I don’t know where home is. Melbourne city has moved too quickly, it’s racing in front of me and I can’t quite catch up, and Melbourne’s suburbs are now too financially unattainable. London has forgotten I exist entirely even thought I’d say it was my first true love, and Queensland is so slow that I feel too big for it and I don’t fit in here either. If only I could pick up my house, move it to Melbourne, select and copy my job here and paste it in Melbourne as well. 

These days I’m at the gym a few times per week, doing my hot-girl-walks as often as I can, catching up on all the Star Wars content before I start on catching up on my MCU, and reading the Sarah J Maas books (I’m up to books 13 and 14/15 - yes, reading them simultaneously, it’s this whole thing lol). 

That’s all from me for now. I’ll check back in shortly with some travel stories.