Homeless
Not in the literal, out-on-the-streets, can't-manage-to shave sense, but still ...
I handed in my keys yesterday, and the final inspection vis-a-vis my bond will be today. I'm not really expecting the whole thing back (It's been a five year tenancy, stuff happens) but the agent seemed disproportionately anxious.Possibly she's heard I don't mow my lawns as often as I could. Or it could just be that the agent I signed with left, and the agent I dealt with after left, and their computers haven't let them into the tenancy database for a week and a half. I'd be anxious too.
Hell, I am anxious. I'm a nester. I settle in one place, spray my stuff all over the place, and stay there for as long as possible. This rental was five years, and my previous rental was five years. By and large I've lived on my own all that time and being without a place to really withdraw to is ... different. I'm now living with other people (which is a little layer of awkward) and those people are my parents (which is another layer of awkward) and I feel really displaced. Which is not to take away from my folks who are really awesome for taking me in, and saving me from having to enter into a lease I'd break, and build up some funds for my next move, and frankly just being awesome ... but it's difficult to adjust when you've always been more or less on your own and you're moving back into your parents' place.
Not awesome for the ego.
The plan is that this is just a stepping stone. My goal for more than a year now has been to leave Shepparton (And especially my employer!) and move back to Melbourne. The trigger was supposed to be my finishing my Master's Degree in April last year but life intervened. Now I've been given the shove from my rental (the owners are renovating, then selling) I have extra bonus motivation to see something happen. That being: "Otherwise you live in Shep with your parents". Shepparton is really not the place for me and, though we lived together for about four months when I first came back here, sooner or later my parents and I will will kill one another in a chainsaw rampage if forced to stay together. We're all just too used to having our space.
(Plus, that'll be two against one ... I don't like my chances)
Fortunately the outlook isn't terrible. Society can now basically not do without network adminstrators (like it can't do without bankers: they hate us, but we'll always be there) and there are jobs posted every week online and in papers. The agency I'm working with says I'm being skimmed out a lot just because I'm not already living in Melbourne, but it's just a matter of time before the right job comes up to match my qualifications. If there's one thing I've leared from my job history so far it's that making a quick decision to get out of a miserable situation, only to get into a new miserable situation, isn't worth it. I'm lucky enough to have an existing, though soul-savaging, job and support around me to keep me going until I can make a choice that's going to be productive for me. Damned if I'm not going to take advantage of it. With the help I'm being given I'm positively obligated to make a good choice, a strong choice, and put myself n a position to help someone else some day.
What I want ... what I want isn't so much, as it turns out. Even at Melbourne's prices my calculations say I could get by on my current salary ...in education ... paid by the Catholics. At any fair employer I should be set. Then with my own place in the city I can entice a partner (though I confess I already have one in mind) and that would be ... well ... more than I really think I'll ever have.
Still, step one is before me: Job.
I handed in my keys yesterday, and the final inspection vis-a-vis my bond will be today. I'm not really expecting the whole thing back (It's been a five year tenancy, stuff happens) but the agent seemed disproportionately anxious.Possibly she's heard I don't mow my lawns as often as I could. Or it could just be that the agent I signed with left, and the agent I dealt with after left, and their computers haven't let them into the tenancy database for a week and a half. I'd be anxious too.
Hell, I am anxious. I'm a nester. I settle in one place, spray my stuff all over the place, and stay there for as long as possible. This rental was five years, and my previous rental was five years. By and large I've lived on my own all that time and being without a place to really withdraw to is ... different. I'm now living with other people (which is a little layer of awkward) and those people are my parents (which is another layer of awkward) and I feel really displaced. Which is not to take away from my folks who are really awesome for taking me in, and saving me from having to enter into a lease I'd break, and build up some funds for my next move, and frankly just being awesome ... but it's difficult to adjust when you've always been more or less on your own and you're moving back into your parents' place.
Not awesome for the ego.
The plan is that this is just a stepping stone. My goal for more than a year now has been to leave Shepparton (And especially my employer!) and move back to Melbourne. The trigger was supposed to be my finishing my Master's Degree in April last year but life intervened. Now I've been given the shove from my rental (the owners are renovating, then selling) I have extra bonus motivation to see something happen. That being: "Otherwise you live in Shep with your parents". Shepparton is really not the place for me and, though we lived together for about four months when I first came back here, sooner or later my parents and I will will kill one another in a chainsaw rampage if forced to stay together. We're all just too used to having our space.
(Plus, that'll be two against one ... I don't like my chances)
Fortunately the outlook isn't terrible. Society can now basically not do without network adminstrators (like it can't do without bankers: they hate us, but we'll always be there) and there are jobs posted every week online and in papers. The agency I'm working with says I'm being skimmed out a lot just because I'm not already living in Melbourne, but it's just a matter of time before the right job comes up to match my qualifications. If there's one thing I've leared from my job history so far it's that making a quick decision to get out of a miserable situation, only to get into a new miserable situation, isn't worth it. I'm lucky enough to have an existing, though soul-savaging, job and support around me to keep me going until I can make a choice that's going to be productive for me. Damned if I'm not going to take advantage of it. With the help I'm being given I'm positively obligated to make a good choice, a strong choice, and put myself n a position to help someone else some day.
What I want ... what I want isn't so much, as it turns out. Even at Melbourne's prices my calculations say I could get by on my current salary ...in education ... paid by the Catholics. At any fair employer I should be set. Then with my own place in the city I can entice a partner (though I confess I already have one in mind) and that would be ... well ... more than I really think I'll ever have.
Still, step one is before me: Job.