bye-bye perth.

Sitting at the airport, back where I arrived 205 days ago, 6 months and 22 days ago, and since you can find anything online (thanks timeanddate.com), it calculates to 17,625,600 seconds, 293,760 minutes, 4896 hours, 29 weeks. It feels staggeringly preposterous (!) to have packed up my entire belongings into my one backpack (ok girls, this is not just a week-long holiday - this is my "life"), walked out of my room abandoned clean and bare (even took my bags of sea salt and bay leaves), and left the keys to the flat on the kitchen counter as I closed the door behind me (koala keychain in my pocket). I've got another 13 days (1,123,200 seconds, 18,720 minutes, 312 hours) of holiday to look forward to with mum before I'm forced to start again in a new place, find a new job, make new friends - I can only hope for something better than the life I made for myself in Perth. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but there's something about Perth that I'll always hold dear. Maybe for it being the first place I moved to live completely by myself. Maybe for the friends I met there. Maybe for all the ridiculous laughter it will remind me of. Maybe for the weather it constitutes as winter. However, I needed to get out but my part-time job wasn't paying enough for me to save enough to leave and I just didn't like my new full-time job enough to continue it. So, even though mum says she came to visit because she was worried about me since my spider-bite incident, I think she really came here to rescue me and take me out of Perth. As it turned out, it was perfect timing: she arrived the same day my BFF of 46 days (1 month 16 days) Ted left. The time on the visa is depreciating every day and the new year is ringing in substantial Ryan-family events I am not sure I want to or can miss, so instead of sitting around wondering what I'm doing in Perth and justifying it, it's time is up and it's time to see the rest of Australia.

I'd rather go to that contemplative place my mind wanders to when I stress-pick my split ends (I blame the free hair cut entirely) rather than have to deal with reality right now. I'm not good with goodbye's, but I know whatever is next will work its self out. What's just another phase in this Australian adventure?!

As I turned my head to get one last glimpse of Perth's skyline in the distance behind me, Rod Stewart came on in the taxi radio. A perfect goodbye. bye-bye Perth.