He Says:
Home is where the heart is, and I'm about to be 2,559km away from mine.
Being such a grand distance away from my crucial organ may not be medically recommended, but for the sake of adventure it's time to fly from the nest. Falling and flapping little featherless wings is a trauma we all have to go through, and while the landing may be different for everybody, the freefall remains the same; I'm afraid, uncertain and sure as heck more than happy to stay.
If the wind treats me kindly I will land in Dunedin, New Zealand, freezing my 'Sunshine State' butt off while interning at the 150-year-old Botanic Garden. I've never done anything like this before, but every blogger and tweed-wearing author before me has spoken of the beauty of the unknown, and it's time for me to see what the fuss is about.
As dramatic as I'm being, parting from my blood-pumper won't kill me. I, in fact, come from the generation of mobile phone zombies, and the only heart we need are the ones we vapidly tag online when a ‘Like’ just isn't good enough.
And if you’re asking why don’t I just bring my heart with me, it's because I'm from that mobile phone zombie generation and none of us can afford any extra baggage. I will miss my dog though.
She Says:
I do my best to live without regret, however whenever I hear ‘One Perfect Day’ by The Little Heroes, I feel a pang of regret that I didn’t travel and work overseas in my youth.
Heading to a foreign country on but a wing and prayer is a rite of passage for so many young Australians, and it is a leap of faith I wish I had taken before I settled down to a mortgage and family.
No doubt I am romanticising life as a young Aussie expat, however in my mind, living on one minute noodles (like I did when I first moved out of home) would be much more tolerable with snow floating by your window, and taking my laundry to a London laundrette seems a far more glamorous concept than carting a basket full of dirty clothes back to my parents’ house courtesy of Queensland Rail.
I so lament not feeling national pride on foreign soil. Whenever I see footage of INXS’s 1991 Wembley Stadium show, I can only imagine how it must have felt being a proud Aussie amongst the 74,000 sell-out crowd.
All is not lost however. One day I’ll walk along a street in Canada, and I’ll imagine I’m my little sister, whose eyelashes would freeze on her walks to work, when she lived and worked in Banff.