I’ve been away home now around 13 years. It almost seems like another life time when I try to remember what it was like. Home for me was Brisbane, that nice big country town about two thirds of the way down the east coast of Australia. Lovely place really, but at the time it seemed very small, and I couldn’t wait to get out.
The first move I made was London, where I spent just under two years living and using as a base before moving to Amsterdam, where I’ve been ever since. I remember those first two years as a very big time of discovery, both personally and geographically. I roamed England and other parts of the world out of an obsession and love for travelling.
My move to Amsterdam though became something more than just a travel trip, it was a move to a place that I would settle and call home. I grew to love the city and it’s people and the lifestyle that I had here. Each year I would say to myself I would only stay here a year, and then at the end of the year I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. And now after a decade I feel more Amsterdams than I do Australian.
It’s funny though, I haven’t lost the accent from Australia at all. None of us really do I think, once you have it, it stays with you for life, like a criminal record that never goes away, not even after 200 years of colonial rule. But after that there isn’t much inside of me that’s still dinky-di true blue Oz. Most of my core attitudes have changed, and the association I had with the community of people from there is feeling very thin.
After a time you start to ask yourself, who am I?
Ten years ago if someone had of asked me, would there ever come a time when I wouldn’t feel like an Australian, I would have said they were fucking crazy. After all, I was an Australian’s Australian; I loved my Friday night (Rugby League) footy on TV, and honest Aussie rock. I loved driving down the South Coast road to Brunswick Heads to the Stone Ground Pie Factory and chowing down on a meat pie with peas or three. But now, ever so slowly, everything seems to have changed, and after so long away, I no longer feel like the Australian I was before.
Andy.
