A cynical look, written on a less than lighthearted day a few months ago on a public holiday when he went to work again
(This isn't all me. It's a conglomeration of 15 years of conversations with women who've had to move a lot!)
...and following a questioning email from a concerned friend, no were not moving to Dubai...or anywhere. This is a hypothetical story. If you've lived this life though, you'll understand the tale...
Where the hell do I start? You’ll probably begin by being awe struck by this dashing man who is charming you off your feet with tales of adventure and extreme.
Deciding to become a team, you quickly find that he is very dashing, and there is a lot of it to be had. Dashing to the airport to drop him off. Dashing back when he rings to say he’s left something behind and has to depart in 5 minutes, and dashing to the hospital alone to deliver the baby, because it’s come two weeks early and he’s ‘away on a trip’.
There’s dashing to the post office to send off resume’s to get out of this place, and dashing to the shops for more supplies as you are home alone with two children, the cyclone is coming and the power has gone off. Sometimes the baby and the cyclone arrive in unison.
Charming is the term you use to describe the hell hole you are renting as you’re newly arrived at yet another destination for yet another job which is just that bit further up the ladder. And if you’re lucky enough to be getting a pay rise, that’s always handy to cover the cost of having just moved - and that’s where the life of extreme comes in.
Most first jobs in GA are to be found in the Charming tropical north, and because this is all new to you, you happily pack your bags, kiss your mother goodbye for 20 years, and nervously resign from your career saying “I’ll be back”.
Arriving at your new abode, in a place that’s not even on the map, you quickly set about charming the locals in an attempt to make friends in your new ‘home’. Having arrived an hour before, he kisses you goodbye before dashing back to the airport to depart for an 8 day charter, leaving you to unpack and charm your way into finding a job which usually involves waitressing, making beds or emptying bins at the airport, because here in the Back of Beyond Not Even On The Map Hell Hole GA Job Place there is no need for an IT Consultant or a clever lawyer, and they don’t care that you spent five years running the United Nations in New York. They just want to know ... well nothing. You’ll be gone soon. Soon as he gets his hours up.
So, charming it is. You sort the dangerous drunks from the happy drunks, and write a lot of postcards to placate your mother’s fears. Everybody promises to visit, but nobody can actually find you in Back of Beyond Hell Hole GA Job Place, and it costs four million dollars to get there on Major Airline, Subsidiary Airline, Dodgy Brothers GA Airline, then a cut lunch and a compass.
By the time you’ve sorted the deadly snakes from the make-you-very-sick-but-you’ll-be-OK snakes, and finish unpacking your last box of effects, there’s a phone call. You can’t quite make out what he’s saying, because of the crackle on the line, but the guts of it is that he’s got a new job, and you now live on an island in Bass Strait. Can you meet him down there?
You have a garage sale and sell most of your stuff and burn the rest because it’s gone mouldy. You say goodbye to your 3 best friends at the bar and head south, stopping in Melbourne to buy some foul weather gear. Arriving at the new place, you are greeted by a stranger who says Mr Charming had to dash off on an 8 day charter, and shows you to your room.
You are sharing a house with 5 other pilots, an engineer, a mangy dog and a psychopathic local who has the lease on the house for which you are to be very grateful. At least now you have someone to talk to. There’s a jovial atmosphere, and the guys are pleased as punch to meet you; they’re sick of pizza and hope like hell you can cook.
You quickly learn to cook for the masses. Three nights a week you are waitressing, and on the nights that you are home to cook, all and sundry arrive for dinner and suddenly you are running the party house.
Nobody gets enough sleep, and you never progress beyond the sink at work, because you always turn up with a hangover. You’re having a fabulous time with all your new friends, and two years whizzes by. When the Regionals call, you throw an engagement party, and are saddened to say goodbye, not realising you’ll be together again soon enough ... possibly in court.
The Regional Airline is in a regional centre, and promises a better lifestyle. You marry in the Botanic Gardens on his RDO. The bridal party arrive from all corners of the country, and others send telegrams from PNG and Africa. The honeymoon is fun, and you return to look for work.
The surprising thing, is that having spent one year in Back Of Beyond Hell Hole, and two years on Freezing Island, your skills are out of date, so now in a town big enough to have a TAFE college, you set about updating your talents.
Your best friend finally comes to visit. You’ve had to pay for her airfare, because she’s still titchy about having arrived at Back of Beyond Hell Hole to surprise you the week after you’d left. The couple of years in the regional city take a bit of adjusting. You’re happy to be back in Civilization, but find it a bit difficult to break in. You play netball, and take up sewing as company for the lonely nights.
He’s away 3 nights a week, and it’s a bit quiet now that you’re in a house of your own, though your sewing machine saves you, but nearly does his head in when he arrives home to find cotton all over the carpet and he stands on a pin. You kind of miss the madness and mayhem of Freezing Island, and try to convince your best friend to move to Regional Centre so you’ve got a mate.
One day you both come home with some huge news. He says he’s got an airline job and you’re moving to Sydney/Melbourne/Cairns. You tell him you’re pregnant. He looks a bit stunned and says that’s very nice but you’ll have to talk about it later because he’s got to start is capital city in four days - can you help him pack? He’s going to be an Airline Pilot!!!!
You stay behind, finish the renovations, pack and sell the house, arrange the removalists, disconnect the services, quit your job, say goodbye to the netball girls and take a deep breath. Someone gives you a couple of phone numbers for people they know in Capital City, and promise to visit. You drive the 500 miles home to see your mother and cry all the way.
Arriving 4/6/9 months pregnant, two weeks with a real estate agent looking at rat holes convinces you to spent the extra 4 gazillion dollars a month to have a clean place to bear thy child, and you move in with your husband ... and his study buddy who has just arrived from Back of Beyond Hell Hole Place with his worldly posessions in a plastic bag.
Driving everywhere with a street directory on your knee, you find a doctor, book into the hospital, attend ante natal classes and inform your husband of it all on the weekends while you recite checklists to him. You nurse him through the toughest course of his life to date, and try to remain upright when he says his first trip “on the job” is eight days to Hawaii, and it’s the same week the baby is due.
The baby arrives, and he is home, or not. You settle into mother’s group and try to make some connections. He is away on a 12 day trip, so you pack the baby in the car and drive the 500 miles home to your mother again. You get back the night before his return in time to get some food into the house. He sleeps on his first day back and is cranky for the next two. You try to keep the baby quiet and scurry off to mother’s group, only to find it’s a religious zealots class. You’ve joined the wrong group.
You come home looking for some conversation, to find (still single) old mates from Freezing Island are passing through and are sitting at your kitchen table with a slab of beer. Tired out of your head but pleased of some sane company, you spend the next two days listening to aeroplane talk.
You drive 500 miles to see your mother again. Just as you sort the zealots from the others, he gets a promotion and you’re moving to another capital city, and five years later, it’s another, and then another.
You pack and sell the houses, try not to shout at the real estate agent, call the delivery truck, give away the school uniforms, fill out that stupid change of address form at the PO where the stupid little squares are too stinkin’ small to write in, say goodbye to the people who have been kind to you, and put the kids on the plane alone because he’s driving the car to the next destination. This means you also arrive alone. You do it all in reverse at the new place, then wander the streets looking for some new best friends.
You spend every weekend, Easter, Christmas and holiday alone because the rest of the world is having family time. His holidays are in school time, and school holidays he’s not around so you find a friend and go to the beach - or not.
You are sitting in your new home, finally living the life you’ve been working to achieve and he leans over and pours another chardonnay, muttering three little words.
"Emirates are recruiting".
You stick your head in a bucket and scream !!!
