Forever, home

The concept of a “forever home” has been a shapeshifter for me.

I grew up in a stable nuclear family, and the house I lived in from 4 years old is still where my parents live today, 30 years on. That’s sort of what a forever home is, right?

When we came to Mount Glorious six years ago, I was 28 years old. As I stood overlooking the parcel of forest that was now "ours", I felt like I finally understood.

I felt how someone could just be so happy in that place that they would never need anything else. It felt like I could live here forever; I would never leave. I could see my life opening up before me, quietly tucked away here in the whispering breeze of the mountain.

It felt quite radical to move here, away from the suburbs. I remember being excited to wake up to the sounds of the rainforest, to see the birds in our garden. It is the thing I have loved most about my life here.

Our cabin in the woods has been a cradle through some crazy and challenging times. We survived a pandemic, flooding and a cyclone. We lost Arthur. We’ve grown and changed.

Here we have found peace on silent walks through leaf litter and lichen. Magic, experienced in fireflies and the deafening whoosh of top-knot pigeons flying overhead. Relief felt on the windy drive home, sometimes a golden path of eucalypt trees, other times barely visible through the fog.

In fact, our lives have changed dramatically since we first set foot here as a uni student and a girl who split her time between two jobs. I run a full-time freelance photography career, and Cesar works full-time as a wildlife vet.

With the pressure of these jobs, the real world has grown hungry for our time. And it has seemingly become our only choice to find a new home that is a little closer to day-to-day things.

Now, after a year of coming to terms with this, I find myself on the precipice of change, with boundless excitement for what is to come. In two weeks' time, we will move to our 1920s Queenslander house in Ipswich. A beauty with stunning original doors and windows, one that we can restore to its former glory.

What I have come to learn, is that a forever home is not going to be just to be one place, “forever”. Many of you have likely learnt this before me and are nodding knowingly now.

Pieces of my heart are strewn everywhere, it seems – in houses I once inhabited or regularly frequented.

The concept and creation of home is so intrinsic to how I live my life, and is one of the reasons why I love doing what I do for work. I know now that home is a fluid notion, and one that we can take control of.

Luckily for us, we are not selling our current home. It will remain here for us as we need it for the time being, just with fewer of our belongings. Our mountain story is not quite over just yet.

For now, I know we will be very happy in our new home; though I think at heart of it, I will forever be a mountain girl.