Section 7: Alone This Holiday

I have always found early December to be a hectic time of the year, work or school gets busy from the crush to finish of projects, the shops and streets get crazy with the Christmas time rush, the days of summer are upon us and people are starting to feel the heat and for me personally, I have a few birthdays to deal with, namely my Mums and later in the month my own. For most people however, the Christmas to New Year period is a time to wind down and relax. It used to be this way for me too. Not this year though...

I made my first trip home around the 17th of December. I had only been in Darwin a month and already I was looking to escape the heat and humidity. I was extremely slowly finding my feet in my new job. It was an entirely new proposition for me to have the everyday needs and welfare of five total strangers being my responsibility and the whole whirlwind of the previous month had been wearing me down. Bec's cousin was getting married, so I hopped on a plane back to Victoria for the first of a few 4 or so hour trips back home.
The plane was packed with younger people just like myself heading back 'down south' to visit family and friends for Christmas. I was the odd one out for having only my backpack with me and not being hidden behind mountains of presents. Mikey had been taken care of, my fellow coordinator, mentor, confidant, chauffeur, partner in crime and of course friend Julie had agreed to look after him. At the time Julie lived on a nice chunk of land at a little spit on the map called Virginia, about 30 minutes out of Darwin past Palmerston. Mikey had plenty of room to run, play and socialise with Julies dog Sally, so he was more than happy after being stuck in the little courtyard of the crap shack. Julie had also kindly agreed to drop me off at the airport, which I happily accepted because as anyone who works in Disability Services knows, we sure as hell don't do what we do for the massive salary, so any chance to save a taxi fare was much appreciated.

I arrived back to something I had missed greatly since I had left Victoria. Cold weather! Oh and my Mum and Dad were there too to pick me up. I had never seen Mum beam so much. It was as if I had been away for years, not weeks. It had been extremely hard for my Mum having me move to the opposite end of the country. My Mum and I are similar in that we both wear our hearts on our sleeves and are not ones for much stoicism. We let our emotions show and Mum was more than happy to let the world know that yeah, it had only been a month, but she missed her son a whole lot. Even Dad, who is usually the opposite of Mum and I when it comes to showing his feelings let his guard down and it made me just that little bit happier to be home. Of course, I couldn't wait to get back to Ararat and see Bec and some of my friends, but for the moment it was about my Mum, Dad and their eldest son.

It was with great excitement and anticipation that I waited to get back to Ararat to see Bec. The hour and a half trip from Bacchus Marsh seemed to take forever. I was elated to actually properly see Bec, not over some grainy Skype web cam, not via an MMS picture, but in the flesh. I just wanted to give her the biggest hug of my life, just so she could tangibly feel how much I had missed her. After a month of either being on my own or with just Mikey (who I love to death but let's face it, he is not a great conversationalist) it was great just being around the person who understood me better than anyone else ever has. We chatted about nothing for God knows how long. Just random, stupid stuff that we could laugh about, until we fell asleep, with Bec in my arms where she belonged.

The wedding was fun, held at a beautiful old church on top of what seemed the biggest and steepest hill in Daylesford and a great time was had by all. The day after the wedding Bec and I headed back to Bacchus Marsh to spend a bit more time with my parents and enjoy a smoothie and breakfast. I also happened to be flying back to Darwin on my birthday and it was one of my birthday presents that would be part of just about everything I experienced while we lived in the Northern Territory, a brand new pair of black Chucks. The became my Territory shoes and when I left, they stayed, no longer black and a crisp white, but almost grey and stained with everything from the monsoonal rain waters to the red dirt of Arnhem Land. I also got for my birthday, thanks to the wet season conditions over the top end, some turbulence on the flight back to Darwin. I'd had a great time being back home, seeing Bec, Mum, Dad and my friends, but it was now back to reality.

Christmas in the Territory! I never thought I'd ever experience it! And on Christmas day I...worked. Yep, I worked on Christmas Day. At Somerville, coordinators and support staff didn't get public holidays off, nor did we get paid public holiday rates. So that was my Christmas. On the plus side, Mikey was able to come to work with me for the day and run around the yard like a lunatic, plus when we got back to the crap shack we were able to watch Animation Domination ALL DAY LONG! As soon as we got back to the crap shack, non stop Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad and Futurama (only broken by the WWE and when we changed the channel to avoid King Of The Hill). Of course I did the ring around, my parents, the family out at Auntie Tina's farm etc. But it was incomplete without Bec, who was not having the best day either. (Also, I missed out on the croquembouche that Bec had made. If you don't know what that is, then remember, Google is your friend). We both wanted nothing more than to be together that Christmas day, but the tyranny of distance was our enemy. As for New Years, well let me put it this way. I was in bed asleep by 10.30 Central Time (I chose 10,30 as it would have been 12 back home). 2009 was done, a year of massive change and upheaval for us, now we had to see what 2010 had in store for us.



Title Song: Alone This Holiday by The Used from the album 'Maybe Memories'