giving things a chance...

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Are you humming the Semisonic song now? Sorry about that.

So. I'm living in Australia. I've been living here for over a year.

And I've hardly given it a chance in that year-long time span.

I'm in a pretty amazing relationship. With a truly amazing woman. But it's in a city I'm not in love with. Where I have no real job. No steady income of my own with which to plan for the future or run a-muck in the present. Both of which, think, are minimal problems. Problems that can surely be rectified by giving said city a chance, and by (finally) finding some means of reliable and steady employment, respectively. And yet.

And yet, the thought of moving back to New York tends to be what propels me forward. I want to find employment in order to earn money. In order to save money. To save money for a move. A move back to New York. (And also to continue building a resume which will allow me to find lucrative employment in the city, also.)

And I worry that this mode of thought isn't a good one. I literally am setting up my life here, in Australia, now; to get me back to another city in another country.

This just seems very bad. A literal hurrying up to wait. Setting up plans that will enable me to save money to set up a life in New York. The life I want.

And, because I have to be honest with myself that I have not given this city in Australia much of a chance, if any at all, I have to ask myself why. Can I honestly be so drawn to New York that I literally can focus on nothing else in the present except doing things that will enable a future return to New York?

Is that normal?

I've always been the type to stay in things until I can no longer stand them. I more fear the regret of leaving something too early, and of wondering what might have been, than I do the regret of staying in something bad or lackluster or painful, than another (more sane) person might. For that reason, I know without the shadow of a doubt, that I left New York too early. I knew it when I was saying good-bye to it; that I wasn't ready to leave it. I knew that I was back in the upswing of falling back in love with Gotham [I very firmly believe that people who choose to live in New York city - any of its five boroughs - would agree with me that the city can be a hard place. But, when they tell you that the only things worth having are things that are hard to come by and hard to keep, they mean it and I feel in every inch of my soul that such is the case with living in New York City.] so to leave it like that....it was beyond hard. I went through several phases of hating New York throughout the few years I lived there, and yet each time my disgust with the city was eventually replaced with more love than I'd ever felt prior. And at no point in any of those i-hate-new-york phases did I actually even consider leaving it. So to take me from a point where I was falling back in more-love-for-New-York-than-I'd-ever-felt-before, to being completely without the city that never sleeps.....well that was brutal.

So for that, I forgive myself for not even realizing that I hadn't been giving my new home city of Adelaide, South Australia any semblance of a chance for a solid year. But the thing is, now I have realized my lack of energies from before. So I have no more excuses. I need to start giving this city the same effort and faith that I gave to the relationship for which I moved here.

So why is that so hard?

And another thing? I felt happier than I've felt in about a year when I realized this morning that I really, truly, and honestly am going to be in New York in a few months' time when a stateside trip to visit my family takes place. That doesn't seem good to me either. That the thought of returning to New York was my immediately, purely, happiest moment in the time since I'd left it?

My biggest fear about this trip is that my love may hate the east coast summer weather, and that an eventually move back, could be pulled off the table completely. To what would I shift my energies? ;)

But, truly. Where is the line between making the best of something new and settling for something less than what you really want? I realize that is me being dramatic. Giving it a chance may indeed lead me to fall in love with this city. Am I afraid that I won't have enough room to love with this city and New York with that same fervor? Don't I at least owe this city the chance to take some of that room?

Relationships take compromise. Pushed into stark light indeed when in an international relationship is embarked upon by two individuals who are very much in love with their own countries, and have no means by which to relocate to a completely independent one. [I'd pick London, if ever given the option. ;)]

Just a lot of thoughts. Jumbled together up there on the page. Hopefully a sister's familiar face this weekend may make some feelings of contentment settle in on me.