Farewell Melbourne…saying goodbye

I sit here typing this at midnight on the night before I leave Melbourne, this wonderful city that I have made my home for over 6 years.

I moved to Melbourne with hopes of a high-flying marketing career, with no idea that in a few years, I would change my career path, decide to learn a language and travel the world.

As I sit here looking at my over-stuffed (and extremely heavy) backpack, I think back to all the months of thought and preparation that have gone into this trip.

My ambitions to travel started years ago, and the arrival date always seemed light-years away. Now, it’s here. So many people have asked me how I’ve been feeling this week, saying, “You must be so excited!”

The truth is, preparing to leave your country without an end date sends you on a roller-coaster of emotions. Your mood changes from excited, to nervous, to freaking out wondering what the hell you are doing, to sadness at throwing away and leaving behind everything you’ve ever known.

People can tell you as much as they want not to feel a certain way, but each of these feelings is a normal part of the process of saying farewell to your home and embarking on a new adventure. I don’t fight those feelings – I just ride the roller-coaster.

People have no hestitations in giving their opinions to a woman doing a solo trip to Latin America. I heard phrases like:
“You’re going alone? Oh, be careful, I heard a woman got assaulted in an uber there, you’re not safe anywhere!”

The vast majority of these reactions were from people who had never travelled solo, and so their advice as you might call it was more of a reflection of their fear. Half the time I’ve been tempted to respond with “Oh, have you been to Latin America then?”, and then watch them squirm as they say no, but I have since been told that it would be rude.

I’m not saying I will be super safe and protected there, but warning of bad things happening never helps a person, it only serves to feed the nervousness (or in my case, annoyance and intolerance) in the roller coaster ride.

Now as I sit here with only 12 hours left until I’m on a plane to my home town to say goodbye to my family before th ebig voyage, the only feeling left is gratefulness. Gratefulness at the life I have led in this beautiful, vibrant, friendly, tempramental city. I’m grateful that I lost my job in marketing and that caused me to change direction, finding a new calling to be an English teacher but in the meantime finding a wonderful job that, ironically, I then decided to leave to pursue this travel (that was one of those ‘What the **** am I doing?!’ moments.)

However most of all, I am so grateful for the incredible friendships that I have made along the way. When I moved here 6 years ago, I knew no one. I found a hosuemate on gumtree and I remember standing in the middle of the city feeling like a free, totally unrecognisable woman.

This week has been full of farewell parties, dinners, speeches and tears, and I couldn’t feel more lucky that these incredible people value me as a friend and colleague.

I hope that all of you following my blog currently will stay tuned as I post about my upcoming aventure. My itinerary will be coming up next.

Note for English learners and travel followers

I am currently making some changes to the site to cater for both those who have been learning Englsh on my blog until now, and those new people who subscribe to follow my adventure. Soon I will contact you to sign up to either or both email lists so you receive content that you want to read.

Until next time, adios Melbourne!

Alicia