Virtually Paul

One

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.

Evicted, sort of

I really can’t catch a break with housing at the moment.  I moved in to a new bachelor pad not all that long ago which really is a fantastic house.  The rent is extremely good for the result.  One of my housemates has lived there for over 5 years, so it’s fully furnished and set up.  We’ve also proved to be the cleanest bunch of bachelors I have ever shared with.   Having only moved in a month ago, it all turned rather sour yesterday.

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!

Even Easter

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.

East again

I’ve found a house!  I move into a new share house on Monday, not all that far away from the one I used to share with Geoff.

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.

The House Hunt Begins

Can you believe that it’s nearly the end of November already?
That means I need to find somewhere to live next year!

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.

Nice ways to kill time

This long anticipated Melbourne Cup weekend came as a much needed rest break from the responsibilities of life.  I knocked over another accounting conversion course exam last week and, in an incredible display of foresight, had booked some leave to allow myself 5 glorious days of R&R.

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.

Moving Day

I’ve spent today moving most of my useful belongings to my new place out east. It’s been a satisfying day. I’ve had the opportunity to go through most of my stuff, throughout the process of packing and unpacking, and I’ve got myself better organised than I have been for a while. It’s a good feeling. The house is great. It’s much better than both of the other two shared houses that I’ve lived in.

What makes it even better are all of the furniture, appliances and kitchen stuff that I get to benefit from as one of the fantastic perks of sharing with a man who just got engaged. And I’m not just talking about a knife block Lance. These guys have a pretty cool setup.

Of course, leaving the old north-west didn’t come without a second thought. I had a bit of a moment here tonight as I was unloading my stuff. The house was dimly lit and very quiet. And it all hit me like a wave. There I was, surrounded by pretty much everything I really need to live quite comfortably for some time, but in a new suburb, some distance from pretty much everyone I know, feeling like somewhat of a visitor in the house.

The words came out aloud “What on earth amI doing here?” A few light-switches later, with a bit of a classic old CD on the stereo and I started to feel a bit better. I spent some time just praying as well, which is always a great idea for those’moments’. And now that I’ve set up my room, I’m sure I’ll be pretty cosy.

I’m not entirely sure how long the feeling of being out of place will take to completely go away - but I know that God has brought me here. Let the adventures begin!