Today, marked the end of an era.
Or, should I say, yesterday.
The clock has not long past midnight. No matter how much I try to pause time, it is now officially Wednesday. Tuesday is well and truly done and dusted. It’s been put to bed. Tucked in and even had its goodnight kiss…and a story!
So, what we’re really talking about is yesterday…Tuesday 5th May, 2015.
Yesterday, my parents sold their place at Palm Beach and our home away from home has gone.
Of course, we can still visit Palm Beach and it is only a 30 minute ferry trip away but it won’t be the same. I certainly felt I belonged there. That somehow I’d absorbed, even inhaled, that magnificent view across Pittwater, especially at sunset when the rose-orange lights swept across the water. That the outside had moved inside, becoming a part of myself.You know how it is when everything around you takes on a sort of spiritual significance and what you see, feel, hear, touch and small somehow get etched into your soul? It doesn’t happen every day.
Therefore, not unsurprisingly, I feel like I have left such a huge part of myself behind. That I am now some modern reincarnation of Keat’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci whose been relocated to the beach, where I’m left roaming along the mudflats with the soldier crabs.
After all, it’s hard when you’ve put down roots. When you pull them out of the ground to move on, you can’t but leave bits of you behind, which you can never get back. They’re tied to the soil, buried and have become a part of that place.
Once upon a time, I would have been totally and utterly devastated. Sunk into a full-blown catastrophe and threatened to lock myself in my room for eternity. Indulging and indeed fuelling my angst, by playing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and reading Keats. He was quite a jolly fellow after all, wasn’t he?!!
Although I’ve matured a little, I have been locked in a fierce debate with myself. I know that I should be grateful for the time we had there. Two years in Palm Beach, albeit part-time, is an absolute dream come true but it’s awakened something in my soul, which doesn’t want to be extinguished. It’s fighting like mad to survive and yet I just don’t understand what it is. Emotions never talk in neon signs and the views of the heart are often cryptic and difficult to interpret at best!!
I hoping I can still hold onto this and somehow take it forward.
However, this closure has reminded me of that age-old question: Is it better to have loved and lost that never to have loved at all? Is it better to stay safe or to have a taste of heaven and then have it suddenly snatch away?
It’s such a wrench…especially when you have lost someone you love more than life itself and for whatever reason, there is no return.
My approach has always been to move on. Find someone else. Take what you enjoyed about this place and enjoy it where you are. We actually live ten minutes walk to a glorious beach and we’ve brought the kayaks and Laser back home so we can still do our water sports. That said, I’ll really miss the friends I have made over there and what it meant for me to have an escape hatch. Moreover, we all know that the rebound often just compounds the hurt!

Geoff and Miss watching the moon rise.
Tonight, it was a glorious full moon. We’d dropped Mister off for his Scout hike and stopped in at the lookout to turn around and chanced upon this…the moon rising over the Central Coast, just North of Sydney. I’d never thought of the rising moon as being symbolic of hope and new birth before but that was it’s message tonight. It reassured me that everything is going to be okay. It’s not the end of the world. You’re not going to die.
Indeed, being a bit philosophical about this difficult change, I am aware that by spending so much time in one place, we’ve actually narrowed our horizons quite significantly. Instead of looking out and seeing the world, we’ve been swimming round and round inside a very small pond. Although we still haven’t explored every nook and cranny, the rest of the world awaits. Indeed, there is even so much to explore right at home, which has been simply overlooked. There are also so many other places and I’ve never seen myself as a John Howard-like character. Our former Prime Minister has been spending his annual holidays at Hawk’s Nest ever since the Big Bang. As much as I love the comfort of the familiar and being a quasi local, I’ve always seen myself as more of an explorer.
And so I have quite mixed feelings as one chapter closes and another begins. It’s time to carpe diem seize the day, instead of being afraid.
Bring it on…but please give me a little head start. I’d like to be prepared!
How have you dealt with difficult transitions in your life? Please share.
xx Rowena