I am Grateful

Just under a year ago, I packed up my house, my plants, my worldly goods and chattels into boxes and sent them off to holiday at a storage unit, while I made my way home.  A few days later when I rounded the big sweeping bend just before Kalkallo and saw the Melbourne skyline in front of me, my city, I was already feeling grateful. I smiled for every one of those last 60km.

The last year has been interesting.  Many people told me to stay in the sunny climes of Briswegia. Melbourne was in what seemed like a terminal lockdown, and the place was depressed, miserable and desolate.  But I was determined to come home, and I am grateful I had the opportunity to see the city at her worst. It makes me love her more at her best.  

I am grateful to make decisions for me, about what my life looks like and how it is lived. 

I am grateful for siblings who encourage me, who champion my every cause and support my endeavours.  My sisters who call me to make sure I am ok! Siblings who, in the place of my parents no longer with me, offer me advice when I need it and give me inspiration to look to when needed. Brothers who make me laugh and make me a better human.

I am grateful to my incredible network of love. My best friends, one who I seem able to talk to three times a day, mostly about nothing and who nourishes me, who makes me laugh like no other person on this earth. And the other besties I have known for almost all my life, who if I don’t speak to them for years, it’s like yesterday when we last got together. To the friends who are patiently waiting for catch ups we have promised one another over the last year and have not managed to make happen. To the new friends I have made who bring me a sense of comfort and place.

I am grateful to my logical Queensland family, the old mates and new who showed me incredible kindness, support and extended their hand when the world came crashing down. Who, at the lowest point of my life, offered a hand to get me back up again and make me stronger, remind me who I was and what I am made of. Who dusted me off and helped me get on with it.

I am grateful to have found a partner in business who gets me, gets my goals and wants to share them. Who have welcomed me into their orbit and made me better at what I do.

I am grateful to live in a state where pragmatism is preferred over hubris. With a government willing to take unpopular and divisive action to keep its citizenry safe.

I am grateful to artists, performers, the entire hospitality sector, retail workers and all those people who, though industry is crashing around them every time we dive into another lockdown, show so much grace and humility and passion for what they do when they get back up again.

I am grateful to be reaching goals, reviving passion projects and building a new radio program at a new station to nurture my love for it. 

I am grateful to be able to make new opportunities, to find new hobbies and to have a reasonable lifestyle to live. To afford wine I want to buy, to feed my love of red shoes, to eat like a prince and live like a queen.

I am grateful I have a team around me. A medical team who are guiding me through challenges I could never put words to. Who have given my mental health conditions and neurodiversity names – PTSD, cyclothymia, autism. A legal team who are guiding me through possibly the biggest fight of my life, a David and Goliath battle to seek recompense for the devastation caused when I was a young boy.

I am grateful to share a house with a patient, generous and funny pom, who brings me coffee most days, makes me tea, encourages me to be kind to myself, makes me laugh and gets my TV watching habits, and who has developed an understanding of my vocabulary driven by Kath n Kim, Will and Grace, Drag Race… and indulges my love for cooking and food. I’m not sure he is grateful for the extra kilos but I am grateful for him.

I am grateful to live in my city, where all my loves are and always have been.

I’m grateful to be alive and I am grateful to be home.