Ani MollerOnce Upon a Time, In a Faraway Land…

I was just cleaning out my camera bag when I found two important objects:

1. A pair of undies I didn’t know I’d lost;
2. Mine and Goblin’s boarding pass from when I moved to Auckland, 840 days ago.

I can’t believe I have been living in Auckland for 840 days now.  That seems like a long time when I think of it in terms of days.  I suppose it is actually a long time, being the longest I have ever lived in one city since I finished high school.  In fact, I think this might be some sort of an achievement.  Because not only have I been here for 840 days, the good majority of those days have been totally fucking awesome.

New Zealanders who don’t live in Auckland are taught to dislike Aucklanders.  They are taught that Aucklanders are snobbish, probably stupid, and don’t know what the rest of the country is all about.  While some of that may be true, most of the people I meet in Auckland are not actually from Auckland, and most people I meet are none of those things.

I travelled the world for a good portion of a decade, on a quest to find somewhere perfect for me.  Being from a strange little village called Upper Hutt, I figured that anywhere had to be better than there.  It felt like it was in the middle of nowhere, full of bogans and pregnant teenagers, and it certainly didn’t have any opportunities for someone like me who wasn’t a bogan or planning on having kids at 16.  My first step was to move to Wellington: the “big smoke” a 50-minute train ride away.  The capital of New Zealand!  It’s a city, man!  Actually, it was still a village.  I needed air!  So off I went to America.

There I spent 3 awesome/shitty/life changing/surreal years.  To this day, it is one of the best things I’ve ever done and I have zero regrets.  I really know how to throw myself out of my comfort zone.  Moving to Houston by myself where I knew 4 people from the internet and no one else was an excellent move.  Living alone for 2 years in a foreign country was definitely life changing.  While it seemed really hard at the time, I realise now that the hardest things often turn out to be the best things.  Hey, I had Goblin to talk to and that’s all a crazy cat lady needs.

Then came PROPER TRAVEL.  Three months mincing about Europe with my mincing Belgian boyfriend, who sadly was so awesome at speaking eleventy languages that I didn’t push myself out of my comfort zone as much as I should have.  But, it’s not really a bad thing to actually be able to communicate with people when the time calls for it.  I saw so many amazing sights and then ended up in Manchester.  Manchester!

My awesome friends from school Mischa and Lance somehow convinced me to move to Manchester.  They said, “Manchester to London is like Wellington to Auckland”, and at that moment I realised that WOW! Manchester must be awesome and London must suck to live in.  So Manchester it was.  However, Manchester did not really agree with me.  I found it a rather depressing city, except for those glorious 2 weeks (maximum) in the middle of summer when you can play frisbee in the park and sit outside.  Too much crime, too much grey, too many scallies.  But on the plus side, awesome apartment, private pool/spa/sauna/games room/gym, and two awesome friends living in the apartment building across the lane who had a sweet flat-screen TV and every episode of Lost ever. After a Christmas holiday to New Zealand, my mincing Belgian boyfriend convinced me that Manchester wasn’t the best place to be, and that we should move to New Zealand.  And that we did, but not before spending an amazing three months bumming around Antwerp.  Literally bumming.  We rented a studio and lived off our savings for three months.  It was absolutely fantastic.  Would recommend. Will do again.

And thusly, I was back where I started: Wellington, New Zealand.  I spent two years trying to get back into the swing of things and it almost happened but just not quite.  I left Wellington for a reason and 5 years hadn’t changed that reason.  It was still too small, too villagey, and by jove they really don’t joke about that wind.

Two years later, almost to the day, I was on a plane with Goblin to Auckland.  While my reasons for moving were motivated elsewhere, the outcome is clear: I made the right decision, and I love Auckland.  There, I said it.  I love Auckland!  There are so many great things about this city that every time I sit on my back deck in the sun, or walk down any road in Ponsonby or Grey Lynn and appreciate the lovely cottages, or walk down the street and bump into no one I know, or go out for cheap Asian food anywhere and everywhere, or drive to a new part of town that I don’t know, or just walk down Great North Road and look over the hill as I cross Sussex Street at the sea, I get a warm little happy feeling of awesomeness.  I have finally found what I was looking for and it wasn’t that far away after all.

This afternoon as I was cleaning my bookcase I found my old high school scrapbook. I found a receipt taped in with the note “the first time I bought alcohol”, dated 1996 making me 16 years old.

1 x bottle Chardon: $6.45
1 x bottle Marquevue: $5.95
Total: real classy

Two days of unpacking, more left to go. My room is all set up, my cat is out of the cattery, and my new job starts tomorrow. I am exhausted.

I have been packing solidly for two days now, although I did do a bit three nights ago as well. So far I have packed 23 boxes, with an estimated 9 more to go. This does not include the rest of the stuff the movers will be picking up: 3-seater couch and ottoman, armchair, dining table and 4 chairs, 2 bookcases, rug, coffee table, desk, dressing table, queen bed frame and mattress, ironing board, 2 drying racks, 2 mirrors, and 4 deck chairs. That does also not include the rather large suitcase I am taking on the plane, my camera gear, and my cat. That is all entirely too much stuff for one person.

During my overseas travels I managed to keep my entire life’s possessions down to two suitcases. That was it. Every time I moved I sold or gave everything away. Now I’m a little older, less hesitant to move countries “permanently” at the drop of a hat, and less willing to give up the couch I love sitting on so much, the rug I searched all over town for, the white china dinner sets, the white towelling sets. I have become the narrator from Fight Club and all I need is a massive gas explosion to set me free from my life of material ownership.

But sans explosion, I am stuck here in my house, wrapping things in newspaper, washing dishes, clearing cupboards, and cursing having all the things I wished I had when I went flatting again with not much more than a suitcase of clothes two years ago. I have one day to finish. With all this work left, I might as well give up and go back to watching True Hollywood Stories for a little bit longer.