I have deliberately not written here for a little while, for just over two months in fact.
Not because I have had nothing to say, or haven’t had thoughts that I have needed to process, but not long after my last post, I found myself in a much calmer space than I’ve been for a while.
I still miss Maddie, and we still talk when we can – but obviously the 11-hour timezone difference can sometimes make that fairly difficult – one of us is usually in the middle of the night, and often just too tired to talk to the other in any coherent manner.
No, I’ve chosen not to write for a little while because I wanted to understand within myself, exactly what this calmer headspace was going to mean. Writing the various posts on this site are often heart wrenching, and always emotional.
I didn’t want to cloud up this headspace too much by picking and prodding at it by trying to put it all into words too soon.
I’ve been much better with everything. As I said, I still miss Maddie and she says she misses me, but the raw pain of her being so far away as faded somewhat. I can now see this whole situation as a journey. She’s been on the other side of the world for more than six months now. Her secondment to London is more than a quarter of the way through.
Feeling that the time is passing by is really helping.
It has hurt – but the time really is passing by. Every day she is away is another day closer to her return.
There is – however – a dilemma, as there always seems to be.
I’ve been thinking long and hard about moving back to Victoria. My employer has indicated that they would have no issue relocating my role from the Sydney office, to the Melbourne office.
I’ve been finding myself feeling the need to be closer to “home”, and closer to my family. I’ve been away from everything down there for a long time, so there’s definitely an appeal.
While Maddie is from Victoria too, her company doesn’t have an office in Melbourne. If I pack up and move down, what happens when she comes back? We’ll still be separated by distance. Sydney may very well be London.
We wouldn’t be able to just catch up for coffee at the drop of a hat. For me that would be a huge price to pay.
I’m very close to closing to make the move.
An unemotional view of the situation would be something like: “Maddie is with someone else, and you’re happy for her, so everything will be fine.”
Of course, that’s not how my head works – so I still have some thinking to do.
In the meantime, we chat as often as we can. I picture us sitting on a park bench chatting away for hours at a time. I picture her in her favourite red high heels. She’s the kind of girl who really loves to wear heels, but red ones have always been her favourite.
When I see other women walking around the city in red high heels, I do smile and think of Maddie.
But I’m doing good, and I feel okay.
Life is possibly turning another corner – will Maddie be around that corner however? Or will she stay on the other side of the street?
It is hard to know.