What I learned, was actually more about me. My instinct was to avoid the issue, whether that be wanting to run away from the office and hide in a dark hole for the day, or just being less than motivated and becoming easily distracted by the many trivialities that can exist in a busy office. Eventually, I realised that I’d gotten myself a bit worked up. I ended up opening up a Word document and just throwing the thoughts into it quickly and reading them back. I’d actually become so worried about the idea of not meeting my deadline, that the initial hurdle… the bit that required holding a little bit of nerve… was almost too much to face. I wasn’t sure how things were going to pan out, so I stopped being particularly constructive and just started having a bit of a sook and bracing for the impact.

I can think of a few instances recently where I’ve had a similar reaction to less-than-comfortable situations. I am going to try to change this habit. I’ve been sitting back trying to think of people I know, who seem to roll with challenges better than I do when the world starts to seem a little bit less certain. I can think of a few… and I think I can work out what they have in common. Part of it is about habit and practiced discipline. More than that though, it seems like they actually “have” something. Maybe there’s something to this:

Psalm 62:5-8
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
Selah

This week is a milestone is the life of Paul. It’s officially one year since I moved across the city to the eastern suburbs.

In that time, I’ve swapped 23+ years in a familiar church community, for a fresh start at Yarra Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship. I’ve moved house four times. I’ve worked on audits at a stack of companies and associations. I’ve led on a kids camp. I’ve occasionally helped to lead a youth group. I’ve been a groomsman in a wedding. I’ve been to Soul Survivor. I have purchased and watched almost seven seasons of Stargate: SG-1 on DVD. I’ve spent some weekends in Traralgon and Buxton. Last week, I went to a wedding and a “Narnia” themed 21st birthday party on the same night.

I remember really struggling when I first made the move. I remember feeling stranded and alone. I remember worrying about whether people were accepting me and not feeling as though I had a place. If people took an interest in getting to know me, it wouldn’t take very long for some painful stuff that I was still sorting through to bubble up in one way or another. Looking back on it now, I’m realising that I didn’t enjoy the re-establishing process as much as I could have. I think I probably did that to myself. I had a few too many narrow expectations of what I was looking for. I failed to realise the opportunity I had to embrace my new community context, even when I was hurting.

These days, I feel like I have my feet planted much more firmly on the ground. It didn’t happen in the way I expected though. None of my narrow expectations have been met. Instead, I’ve found myself in community with a really diverse bunch of people, who all have their own stories, their own expectations, their own painful memories, their own hope and their own faith. I want to share in those things with them.

I thought I was looking for my place in the world. I think I’d rather just be a part of things where I am and see what comes of it. It’s a liberating conclusion. There are a number of people to whom I feel deeply grateful - people who walked alongside me for the past year while I was figuring this stuff out - who saw me at my worst and at times, wore the brunt of it. You know who you are. Thank you, sincerely, for being there and for your graciousness.

As soon as I walked in the door after work last night, my housemate told me that he’d received a call from the agents to inform him that the landlords have had some changes in their circumstances and have decided to move in to the property.  We now have 67 days to vacate.  I’m spewing that I didn’t ask for a 12 month lease when I had the chance.  It’s one thing for my housemate who has lived there for years to get the eventual wind-up as that’s the nature of the game.  It’s another thing entirely to allow someone to move in (ie. me) for the sake of pocketing a couple of months rent before they take up residence again.  I’m not happy but there’s not an awful lot that I can do about it.  At this stage the three of us will probably just look around for somewhere else to rent as a trio, so it won’t be immeasurably disruptive, just extremely inconvenient.

If anyone has any suggested solutions, by all means let me know!

I think it’s been a while between posts. I’m currently sitting with the Gush admin team in a loungeroom somewhere near Sale. I’m spending the Easter weekend catching up with the guys in Gippsland. It seemed to be an appropriate time to do it, given that this is even east-er than Ringwood. Tee hee.

We spent this afternoon doing a bit of sightseeing around country Victoria, including stops at Tyers Lookout (pictured), the takeaway shop in Rawson and the Thompson Dam.

Apparently I have to get back to the ‘admin team meeting’ now.

It has all happened reasonably quickly so it feels a bit surreal.  It’s a nice place though and I get the sense I’m really going to enjoy the coming months.  I’ll be living extremely close to work, I’ll have my own space, and for the first time since high school I’m not studying anything this semester.  Not to mention that EastLink opens sooner or later, which will make it nice and easy to visit the family home from my new bachelor pad.

I have an extremely low opinion of the delivery of the Grad Cert course (so if you’re considering doing it… look into it thoroughly first and see if you think you can stomach what’s on offer).  However, I got through with a distinction average.  Yay for that.

On Sunday morning, we rolled up at his church so that he could meet his commitment to play keyboard for a small church, with maybe 25 people, all probably over 60. It was whilst I was sitting on a pew by myself, waiting for the service to start, that I met Ada. Ada strolled in the door with the assistance of her walking frame. She’d been in the door less than 20 seconds before she looked straight at me and called out the warmest “Hello there!”. Within a minute, I hadn’t moved and Ada and her walking frame had come to sit next to me. We had a great little conversation as she told me all about where she’d lived throughout her life and the things she’d done. Within 5 minutes we’d worked out that Ada grew up at Moonee Ponds Baptist Church with my grandfather and that my great-grandmother (who I never got to meet) had played the organ in her wedding. Ada was even more surprised and delighted than I was, calling her husband over in excitement.
“Guess who’s grandson this is!”

I felt special.

Completing the Grad Cert makes life extremely more interesting, given that I’m not enrolled in anything else. That will make the coming semester the first time that I haven’t been studying something, since leaving high school at the end of 2001. I cannot wait. I will be moving up to full time work in the coming weeks, outside of which I will have absolutely no ongoing commitments or expectations being placed upon my time.  It’s going to be good.

I moved back over to the north-west of Melbourne in mid-January, the day before my former housemate got back from his honeymoon. With the exams pending, my parents were gracious enough to allow me to return to the family home, so that I could devote sufficient attention to studying and not be rushed into finding new accommodation.

It’s been nice being back home, even though it involves almost an hour’s drive to get to work.  The work thing will probably take its toll eventually but so far I’ve survived.  It’s been good having a chance to just spend time with my family and hear about things that are going on day-to-day.  I’ve also spent a bit more time at my family’s church in Essendon than I had been whilst living out east.  I really like the familiarity sometimes.  The sermon this morning was excellent too.  Dan preached on interacting with the community and reminded us of how ineffective it is to have separatist habits, where we just stick to being friends with ‘churchy’ people.

It has gotten to the point where I’m almost going to have to choose between two very viable options for the remainder of the year.  I could choose to live in either the east or the north-west of Melbourne, without either being a terrible option.  Finishing the Grad Cert also has me asking bigger questions of career choice and life direction.  I think I’m actually going to find it challenging to just sit still for a little while, without necessarily knowing where I’m “based” or “where I’m headed” but I’m hoping that’s a good thing because it leaves room for lots of pleasant surprises.

If you have any leads on places where I could board, rent or share in the eastern suburbs in 2008… I’d be very grateful if you’d leave me a comment.

Allow me to explain…

As well as being the day of the Australian Federal Election and the AFL draft, today we also observe that there are exactly 6 weeks to go until Bec and Geoff’s wedding. Whilst the impending nuptials are most definitely cause for celebration (particularly because I get to be a groomsman), it will also bring to a close their reasonably short era as my housemate-and-a-half. Geoff and I have been sharing a nice little two bedroom townhousey place since August, with a view to my disappearing and Bec moving in after the wedding (quite obviously to move her single bed in to the room that I am vacating, so that she has somewhere to sleep).

As such, I have promised to disappear from the premises before they return from their honeymoon, even if that involves some significant commuting in the short term because I end up returning to my parents’ place on the other side of town. I really, really, really don’t want to do that if it can be at all avoided.  Mum’s cooking is fantastic, so it’s a backup plan that is not without its benefits, but the commuting back and forward to work gets to be a bit much for me.

So, as I said, I’m looking for a place in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne to board, rent or share, commencing in mid-January 2008 (or earlier if necessary). I’d much prefer to move into somewhere that is already set up, rather than trying to establish a share house from scratch - but I may not end up having the choice. I think I’m a good housemate and I come with good references from previous landlords and cohabitants.

So, Thursday night I toddled off to dinner at Mum and Dad’s, crashed there for the night before meandering my way into the city on Friday to have lunch with old mate Matt.  Friday night saw me playing mini-golf with the youth group from my housemate’s church.  I had a blob day at home on Saturday before going to a friend’s birthday barbecue, after which I joined a bunch of people heading down to a house (straight out of the 70s) in Rosebud for the weekend.

Through a number of plot twists that I won’t go into, Sunday morning saw me attending the main church-ish meeting at the God’s Squad annual national meet-up.  I don’t think it’s a typical thing for non-members to be doing, so I was quite honoured by the privilege.

Sunday evening saw the gang piling (almost literally, due to space constraints) into the back of a car to take in a couple of movies at the Dromana drive-in.  We saw The Brave One (Jodie Foster) and December Boys (Daniel Radcliffe), both of which were OK.  We capped the night off with a stroll on the pier.

Monday, after a late start and a hearty home-cooked breakfast, we grabbed a quick fish and chip lunch on the beach at Sorrento, before heading off to Point Nepean National Park for the afternoon.  I’d been there earlier this year with my Dad and some mates from church but we hadn’t managed to cover the whole park, so I got to see the rest of it, which was cool - especially Fort Nepean itself, the old military gun emplacement that used to guard the heads to Port Phillip Bay.  One of the gun emplacements there fired the first Australian shot of both World Wars… and the views are pretty impressive as well.

On the way back, we made a detour via the ocean beach in Sorrento and spent some time walking along the rocks and having a sticky beak in the rock pools.  That was a nice part of a the trip.  Easy and uncomplicated.  No priorities or problems, no purposes or pressures, just time to kill.

I arrived back home last night and spent this morning listening to lots of music, just because I could, before driving up to Mount Dandenong for a stroll, whilst I listened to some podcasts that I’ve been meaning to get to for a while.

Relaxing is nice.