We purchased our first very modest house (worst house, great
street.) and lived there for 18 years.
Our first baby arrived when I was 27 and our next bubba blessed us when
I was 29; I spent seven blissful years at home eating bangas and mash and
eating mince and living a very happy but simple life raising our children just
the way we were raised. Life at home was all play dates, play groups, parks,
library visits and beautiful days of happiness. Holidays were local or at the
family get away, where we did cabins and caravan parks and loved every second
of it. But really, holidays were few and far between because we lived the good
life at home.
I set the goal to return to work as a teacher when my
littlest babe reached term two of prep and did so to the day. (Swimming and
long distance running were now a part of my life.) The kiddos continued to
thrive, were sports crazy with swimming, playing basketball and lifesaving.
Paul and I kept on sporting (hubby took up bike riding when our son was two.) I
travel to Sydney on our 10th wedding anniversary to complete my
first half marathon; my introduction to travelling to races had begun.
I finally secured full time teaching work after years of
contract work, securing a permanent teaching job is much like the Hunger Games;
to you have take each other out until you win the position. I secured one of
four, as there were nine of us who went for the jobs. Now I had to prove myself
so it was all work, work and more work. I loved the school holidays as it was a
time to slow down with the kids and tale
a break from our busy school routines; we just feel content plonking at home. We
took the kids on a few Australian holidays: Byron Bay and Queensland (incorporating
a swim), Sydney, Adelaide (incorporating the Tour Down Under), again modest
holidays filled with sightseeing and much family togetherness. I continue to do
small trips to new destinations to compete: Sydney for the Sydney Harbour Swim,
Adelaide for the Tour Down Under as media representatives for a radio station
in Arizona (so random, I know!) and then my first trip to Perth for the
Rottnest Island swim. This was my most adventurous solo trip yet. I travelled
across the other side of the country, to compete in a team with people I’ve
never met before (except for on Twitter) and lived with these people for a week.
And this was where I met Michelle, now one of my closest and trusted friends
and adventurers. I returned to Perth two more times to compete at Rottnest
Island with her and some other wonderful people and also hit Coogee in New
South Wales for Bondi to Bronte swim with her, we’ve had so many good times
together.
The kiddos entered high school 500m away and we commit
middle age suicide and bought a new house before we sold our first one. We sold
the first one three times over in six weeks and finally hit the jack pot with
an offer and finance that stuck; we moved into our dream home. Life with
teenagers continued and Paul’s and my sports shifted up with both of us pursuing
long distance racing. As the kids grew older we explored our own country some
more with weekends and holidays away: more Adelaide and Sydney trips, plus lots of city escapes and beach
retreats to Torquay and Geelong, plus Victorian getaways to Mildura and the
Murray River, Bendigo, Ballarat and Echuca. So all in all, travel has featured
strongly in our family, just not overseas. Our focus was purely on a simple and
fulfilling home life without financial stress and overseas holidays jeopardised
that I suppose.
I’ve had 47 revolutions around the sun, I’m still working
full time in a job at the same place that barely resembles the form of
employment I began twenty-five years ago.
If I’m going to #realtalk here I’ll go as far as to say there’s so much less respect for the profession than there
ever used to be, far more precious children than there was when my own children
were primary school aged kids, far less parenting involvement, far more blaming
when things go wrong and it’s always the teacher’s fault, far more intimidation
from students who have a warped sense of entitlement and the odd act of
violence that I never, ever thought I’d have to deal with. So all in all, the
burn out factor is ever so real here. On the plus side, this profession has
meant we’re completely debt free, have lived a simple but full life albeit an
insular one. We’re still sports crazy and our home resembles a train station
now, as I have a twenty year old working full time and an eighteen year old
only three months away from finishing year twelve. Every day we come and go,
come and go and live life as loudly as we can. But still, our everything still happens
in a ten kilometre radius and I’m ready to bust out.
Would I change anything in this story if I had the ability
to see my life in a crystal ball? Maybe one or two small things but on the
whole life has treated us beautifully and we’ve had much good fortune. I look
around me; many of my friends still have primary school aged kids as they
started years after us, are nowhere near ever owning their own homes BUT they
are well travelled. They’ve back packed, explored and jet setted, they’ve
followed summers around the world and can list off the places they’ve
adventured to and have had experiences I can only ever dream of. They also have
a long continued working life ahead of them ruled by mortgage repayments and
credit card instalments. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Who’s done it better
is yet to be decided. All I know is that this girl, the one who lives only 200m
away from the house she grew up in, lives 2 kms from the pool she swims in, 3
kms from the bay she swims in and 10 km from her place of work, has quietly grown
some wings and is literally set to fly. Watch this air space…
