Australia Day
Tomorrow is Australia Day. I realise I've been neglecting this journal somewhat, but tonight I am in the mood for writing. We've been here nearly a year now (just another 3 weeks), and we have been changed by the experience. In that year's time we have bought a house, made new friends, and started to tentatively set roots down in this new life of ours. We're by no means as settled here as we used to be in Bristol, but we'd been there for 10 years. Those sorts of roots take time, time and energy and friendships that last. They'll come, with time. But knowing the in-jokes, and having a history together, those things that we miss with the friends we're making here. There's no 'do you remember when?' conversations. No 'remember that time that we...' conversations. We're making a new story, a new life, in our new, hotter, drier, sunnier, bluer plant pot with this amazing house that is going to fill up with children.
As I was at church on my birthday, since it happened to be a Sunday, in Augusta, she asked us to write down on prayer flags first of all our thanks for 2012. And then she asked us to write down our dreams - not our resolutions, but our dreams - for 2013. I only had one answer to that, I drew a family, standing at the front door to welcome friends.
At the moment, we're still waiting. I started a new job, it has a 6 month probation I don't want to jeopardise by getting pregnant too early and having to tell them before I get past the probation (where I'm on 1 day's notice) and into the permanent position. So we're on hold, but only for a few months. And then, of course, babies are unpredictable. But every time I see a friend's new baby, or pregnancy announcement, as much as I am delighted for them my heart is crying 'I want that to be me!". So, for 2013, the hope and the dream is to start a family, and to welcome visitors to our home. To have our house become a real home, a welcoming place for our friends old and new alike, a place they feel they can just drop round to, pop in for a drink, or dinner, or a girlie talk, or a late night setting the worlds to rights. That's what I'd like. But most of all, I want to start our family, the family we nearly started last year. It makes my heart hurt, and the time is passing so, so slowly. Head over heart, heart over head. Head's winning, but can it hold out for as long as it needs to? We'll see, we'll see.
A family. 2013 is our year. A family.
As I was at church on my birthday, since it happened to be a Sunday, in Augusta, she asked us to write down on prayer flags first of all our thanks for 2012. And then she asked us to write down our dreams - not our resolutions, but our dreams - for 2013. I only had one answer to that, I drew a family, standing at the front door to welcome friends.
At the moment, we're still waiting. I started a new job, it has a 6 month probation I don't want to jeopardise by getting pregnant too early and having to tell them before I get past the probation (where I'm on 1 day's notice) and into the permanent position. So we're on hold, but only for a few months. And then, of course, babies are unpredictable. But every time I see a friend's new baby, or pregnancy announcement, as much as I am delighted for them my heart is crying 'I want that to be me!". So, for 2013, the hope and the dream is to start a family, and to welcome visitors to our home. To have our house become a real home, a welcoming place for our friends old and new alike, a place they feel they can just drop round to, pop in for a drink, or dinner, or a girlie talk, or a late night setting the worlds to rights. That's what I'd like. But most of all, I want to start our family, the family we nearly started last year. It makes my heart hurt, and the time is passing so, so slowly. Head over heart, heart over head. Head's winning, but can it hold out for as long as it needs to? We'll see, we'll see.
A family. 2013 is our year. A family.