Shedding

I was very giddy in front of Woolies.

There was a guy walking his dog, trying to cut the corner around a bush next to me. He was clearly in a hurry, his shirt and the staffy’s coat were the exact same shade of black.

The staffy suddenly decided to sit down. It was staring at him, tongue out, no longer willing to make a move. “Come on, buddy.” He repeated it a few times, then ran out of patience and just held him up.

The way he chose to pick up his dog made me smile. The staffy was held from the back, like a cat. Exactly like how I would pick up Chipper, my orange cat, whenever I needed him in the study and not snatching my food.

I’ve seen the same pose countless times, reflected in the full-body mirror up the stairs on the way to the study.

Chipper getting held up from the front

For half of the Covid lockdown, I was living in an apartment right next to the same Woolies.

It was the second apartment in Melbourne that couldn’t get any sunlight because it was facing south, but I remember waking up to the city skyline with a few hot air balloons floating, or an ocean of cloud. It was dreamy.

Having sufficient sunlight became a hard requirement for every place after that.

Chipper was adopted from Clayton during the 5km radius era. It’s hard to place that period on the track of memory.

I would also later spend a few years hitting the gym on the next street even though I had moved to the other side of the suburb. I’d treat myself to an iced coffee after each Saturday HIIT session. The same barista, someone I must have bumped into multiple times this week, used to say hi whenever he called out my name from across the coffee shop.

I don’t think he recognised me anymore. But it’s comical because my hair has started to look a lot like his. A proper north-side Melbourne mullet.

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My dad used to only allow me a buzzcut, compounded by the fact that my great-aunt, his older sister, rented part of her street-facing unit to a barber, so I had the most economical (three Chinese yuan) and consistent haircut throughout all of primary and secondary school.

So this is the longest my hair has ever been.

Does it feel rebellious? Sure.

Do I actually want a buzzcut? Absolutely. Everything takes longer: washing it, drying it, cleaning up the drain.

At least we’re gradually going into cooler weather.

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I do feel glad, relieved even, to be back in Brunswick. With so many things to relearn and restart, the suburb feels like a familiar face.

But even though the street layout hasn’t changed, the shops, the people, even the energy feel very different. My old gym, which used to sit next to a block of huge empty land, is now overpowered by a six-storey apartment complex across the entire block.

That particular pocket feels unrecognisable, regardless of which way I walk past it.

Brunswick, Melbourne

My chest feels heavy whenever I look up to the top of my screen to check the time. Sometimes it’s 4PM, sometimes 11PM.

This past week, the mornings at least were structured: a long walk and exercise after waking, cooking a clean lunch, then endless case study prep.

It reminded me of the time I was throwing myself at the product launch around the same time last year. Waking up, short walk, work, coffee, lunch, work, dinner, gym, work, sleep, repeat.

I thought either quitting or taking an extended break would fix that.

It has been four months of total freedom.

Freedom, hardly.

·

It was 10pm. I was walking furiously to the nearest Maccas, half an hour away on Sydney Road, after my fifth and final round of interviews.

Despite it being probably the best interview I’d ever done, both the company and I had gradually come to realise there might be a mismatch between the skills I bring (25% code, 75% design) and the type of designer they’re looking for (75% code, 25% design).

I let my exhaustion and impatience show as the clock ticked down to two minutes, and the CEO asked if I had any more questions.

“I want to know if this is the last round.”

I also can’t complain about the lack of clarity upfront. I created this opportunity myself, through a casual conversation. My housemates commented that it feels like they are “dating” me to figure out who they really want.

“Yup.” And of course, I feel bitter about it.

But I haven’t gotten the final results. Either I get a new job offer that requires some meaningful upskilling on my side (which I think is a worthy challenge), or I need to get more serious about the next batch of interviews.

·

I caught myself realising I had tied everything to the outcome of this interview. I wanted the narrative to be: I easily got a job and a relocation on a brand new continent.

But the truth is, I am failing quite spectacularly.

It’s one thing to write about and imagine how hard moving to a new country will be. It’s an entirely different thing to actually experience it.

I craved a brand new reality, but I still find myself only slowly detaching from the one that was steady and predictable. A reality made up of a tech bubble, a certain lifestyle, a suburb, a schedule.

I am now floating mid-air, weighing the choice of finding the first anchor in sight just to take a breath, or keep flying and see whether what’s coming is a gentle wind or a cyclone.

It feels like a gamble, regardless.

Brunswick, Melbourne

On my way home from the city after crashing a friend’s dinner on Friday, I found it would take 24 minutes for the next Upfield train to leave Flinders Station, platform 4.

I quickly decided to take the 19 tram instead, and walked a few stops because there was a 10-minute wait.

Almost as expected, the train I was supposed to take arrived at Anstey Station the very moment I was ready to cross the tracks, only to be stopped by the signal.

It would’ve taken the exact same time.

Even though the outcome would have been identical, I still felt good, a sense of progress, of being on the move.

·

It’s Sunday, and there’s only one thing on my to-do list: Book the one-way flight to Amsterdam in early May.

I am going to book it.

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