Melbourne - My Great Love Affair....

I was formally introduced to Melbourne 12 years ago.  I experienced her in all her greatness in the winter of 2000.  I had recently separated and decided I needed to see life through "fresh eyes".  The exact details of how I first began my love affair with Melbourne are not ones I'll bore you with but let's just say for a few months, on what seemed like every other weekend, I explored, I ate (too much), I drank (too much), I explored some more and then as quickly as the love affair began, it was over and I didn't go back till my then "boyfriend" who is now my husband (lucky thing he is!), was relocated for work.

So, in November 2002 he and I set out, well I set out, he was already there and we found ourselves living on the fringe of the CBD, in a beautiful warehouse apartment on St Kilda Road.  We didn't know anyone, so every weekend we set out to do something different.  We essentially became urban explorers - we went places I am sure most Melburnians never see in their life time.  As it had in 2000, St Kilda became my favourite all over again, Richmond his (explains his poor choice of AFL teams, I did try to educate him!).  I loved the cold, I loved the fashion.  As a matter of a fact I loved just about everything!

Life settled, my husband went to a fabulous job, I went to one that paid the bills UNTIL 3 months after we moved there when I responded to an ad and was lucky enough to meet a fabulous person who gave me a fabulous job working for her and to this day remains a good friend who I miss dearly.  

Life was great.  I had Chadstone to wander, St Kilda a 15 minute walk away, Prahran and Queen Vic markets a hop, skip and a jump away, Fitzroy a short tram ride away and in winter, my choice of nearly any AFL game I wanted (for a Tassie girl who is a mad Carlton supporter this is like winning the lottery)..  We made some life long friends and had some of the best restaurants and cafes right on our doorstep.

After 11 months of hard slog, we had finally gotten on our feet, could imagine ourselves buying a house and settling there permanently.  Then my husband was told "stay in Melbourne and be made redundant or we can move you back to Sydney".  Again, I won't bore you with the details, but we made one of the toughest decisions of our lives; to leave the place we loved to return to a place we'd so wanted to leave.

So I gave up the most fabulous job in the world with the world's best boss (thanks Anne) and moved us back in time for Christmas 2003.

We miss it a lot but talk about it less these days, we've reached the point where going back will probably never be an option.  Would it live up to everything we've built up in our minds?  We will more than likely never return to live and sometimes that makes me sad but then I think about how our life has panned out back in Sydney and I smile and am thankful for the memories.  I don't get back to Melbourne much these days; I prefer the memories.

Melbourne, thank you for being a few chapters in the book of my life.  To the reason I began one of my most favourite and memorable love affairs, if you are out there somewhere, one day, reading this, thank you also.  You are also a few chapters in the book that is my life.  And I cherish everyone one of those memories.