Meanjin:
It makes sense to start my journey through these 20 Reasons Why where I sit now at my computer in South Meanjin/Brisbane. Will, Bowie and I moved to Brisbane from Newcastle in March 2018. Immediately upon crossing the border I felt a sense of relief and happiness wash over me, along with the humidity. Though the air was thicker I felt lighter than I had in years. We were going to build a new life in Brisbane.
My life lessons in Brisbane started way back before 2018 though. Like many other families in Australia, my mum, dad and I made the trek up to Brisbane from Lake Macquarie in NSW back in 1988 to attend the World Expo in the part of the city which is now the Southbank Parklands. As a five-year-old I remember the bright colours, the huge crowds and the monorail. A section of the World Expo remains in the Parklands today – the Nepal Peace Pagoda located in a rainforest grove which briefly takes you out of the Brisbane city and back into the past. Much like how when I walk through South Bank today that it still reconnects me with my own past of that 88 trip.
At the start of 2005, my bestie Al and I took ourselves on a girl’s trip to the Gold Coast and Brisbane celebrate me finishing my honours thesis and her finishing her primary education degree. On the Gold Coast we stayed at the YHA near the airport listening to the planes fly over us. In Brisbane we treated ourselves to a luxurious hotel on the Brisbane River. We shopped, we drank, and we ate. My honours supervisor had lived in Brisbane for a time and had written me a list of places to visit in West End. So, we jumped on the ferry and got off at the West End stop to end up at a park where we could see none of these shops, cafes or bars that were the apparent must dos. In complete naivety I walked up to a large family group enjoying a BBQ picnic and asked them for help. And of course, the dad offered to drive us up to the main street which I gleefully accepted while Al threw me eye daggers. Nevertheless, we arrived un-murdered, dropped off in the middle of West End and its “eclectricity” drew me in immediately. Al not so much, but we’ve always found that to be the case throughout our whole friendship really. Years later we’d be back in West End together watching Will’s band for the first time perform at a random bar in 2011 and in 2022 we huddled all together at a West End café trying to enjoy a brunch in the pounding rain at the start of that year’s floods. So, it still brings us back there like a bookmark in our thick friendship book.
Following my suicide attempt in September 2005, I knew that I had to leave Newcastle, if only temporarily. Its landscape and people held too many painful memories for me. It felt like a relationship break up, not that I really knew what that truly felt like at the time. Every time I went to a certain café, walked near the beach or even caught up with friends the lighting and sound was dull. A filter of blandness and apprehension had taken over. Maybe a bit of it was that Al was no longer in Newy – by that time she had moved out west to take on a teaching job and had just met her now husband. And while I still had friends in Newy, it no longer felt like where I wanted to be.
So, I applied to Griffith University in Brisbane to undertake a Diploma of Secondary Education only a few weeks after my attempt. In early December mum, dad and I travelled up to Coolangatta for our annual Gold Coast pilgrimage and I found out while I was there that I’d been accepted into the degree. We drove from Coolangatta to Brisbane together and visited the campus and noted down this student accommodation nearby that was under construction, ironically called “Genesis”. I remember excitedly messaging Al and our other close friend from school in a group chat that it was all really happening. Al replied so happy for me, the other friend (let’s just call her K) was not so happy. At the time I didn’t realise, but I now do. We were all leaving her. I was the third in fact to leave from our close friendship group. But more about that friendship in another future reason why…
The end of February 2006 came fast. In that whirlwind of a Summer I’d met and started to get to know my best friend’s boyfriend, my time at the DVD store I’d worked at (where we actually JUST sold DVDs) had drawn to a close and I’d experienced my first (and only sadly) Big Day Out music festival with Al. Sarah Blasko and the Magic Numbers were now on repeat on my iPod as I flew to Brisbane on my own to embark on my big adventure. Now, I’m playing the Magic Numbers on Spotify on my iPhone in Brisbane as I type. How things have changed so much and not changed so much at the same time.
Again, in naïve Peta style, the friendly man I chatted to during my flight dropped me off at my new Brisbane home, “Genesis”. It was perched, unsteadily, as a concrete monument on the corner of Dawson and Logan in not so Upper Mount Gravatt. It was still a construction site, half built, half crumbling with gravel and mud everywhere. The absurdity of the situation brought all of us moving into that atrocity together. In the days that followed the international Genesis family was built. We bonded over our laughter and shaking heads as we dodged exposed wires and tried not to stack it on the slippery, steep steps that didn’t meet any safety regulation in the Southern Hemisphere. At the age of 22, I was a mature aged student but really anything but mature. I recall those early nights of obviation of pub crawls, Aussie themed nights and the Irish pub karaoke at Gardo Shopping Centre.
Much alcohol. Much good times at Genesis.
Only a few months ago I was delivering Mental Health First Aid training at a venue across from the Holiday Village in Eight Mile Plains that my parents stayed at when they briefly travelled up with the rest of my belongings and helped me set up home in Genesis. During our morning tea break, we walked over to the village’s café, and I took in the pool that dad and I swam in some 19 years before. It had been tacky then but was even worse now. How far those years had taken me to bring me back to stare at that same very pool. Life is so random yet so coincidental sometimes.
I can’t pinpoint when, but at some point, during that year, Brisbane became home. When I flew back to Newy for visits I was itching to get back to Brissy. When I walked off the steps of the plane onto the Brissy tarmac and felt that humidity I was home. Genesis eventually became more solid in its foundations and our Genesis family grew. A few months in my housemates in my unit had moved out together and I found myself living alone for the first time ever in my life. I absolutely loved it. Even when some rando called me on my internal Genesis unit phone line and threatened to break into my unit and murder me during the night. The others pleaded with me to sleep over at their units because no one would volunteer to stay over with me at mine funnily enough. But in defiance I stayed at mine to signal a big F you to that arsehole. Of course, the managers of the complex tracked the call to a certain resident. Was he kicked out? No of course not. But I was reassured “He’s not someone that you socialise with so don’t worry”. Phew, another dickwad I’d avoided getting to know.
Somewhere in there, I did a teaching degree or an 8 month “you better already know how to somewhat do this” course. My years of youth work, delivering workshops at youth camps and drama presentations had luckily prepared me well. I was good at it and enjoyed it. There were of course “moments” I questioned it. Like the time one of my lecturers marked me down on a unit plan because they just didn’t really like it yet I’d received highest marks for my practicum and there were other students failing their pracs and somehow scoring high on such assignments. I was only starting to see just how many teachers were out there teaching who should never have been given the certificate in the first place…but again that’s also for a future another reason why.
Looking back from the hindsight lookout of now, Brisbane was a time I came to truly like spending time with myself on my own. I’d always thought I needed to be WITH others, but only a year before I’d been so lonely with those others that I had nearly ended my life. Now, I was going to the movies on my own, eating out on my own and going to the theatre on my own. That year in Brisbane was so healing for me in that I came to know myself with myself in ways that I had never seen or experienced before.
For some reason I moved back to Newcastle at the end of 2006, degree in hand. At least now I had a defined career and purpose, right? But whenever I could I’d fly back up to Brissy to visit friends and breathe in that glorious humidity.
Fast forward to 2011 and I’m back in Brisbane with my new boyfriend. He’s up there for a gig with his band and I come along. Al is shitty with me because I’m supposed to be spending time with her too. But I’m in love. I’m in love with my new boyfriend in a place that I love. He flies home before me and as he leaves our hotel room, I cover his mouth and tell him that I love him. I then spend the rest of the day with Al stressing about wearing my heart on my sleeve and wondering if I’ve well and truly screwed it up. Sorry Al, I do really love you too.
Will and I back in those early EARLY days during our first trip to Brissy together.
13 months later Will and I are back in Brissy with my parents watching the Riverfire fireworks after having just flown in all together. We eat at our favourite Vietnamese Restaurant for the first time and chat about how nice it would be one day to live here.
A little under 3 years later Will and I (now married) are back in Brissy. This time I’m early on in my pregnancy with Bowie and we are looking around suburbs ridiculously close to where I now sit in our house wondering if we could make the move from Newy.
Bowie’s first trip to Brisbane comes in 2017 when I bring Will and him along to the National Suicide Prevention Conference. How nice to have such a depressing conference in a sunny and warm location (hint hint Canberra). We relish the opportunity to take Bowie on the ferry and to sit outside at eat dinner in the middle of Winter. We say, “we could really live here”.
2018 we move here. 2025 We are still here. Genesis still stands.
Our first weekend in Brisbane after moving here in 2018.
Brisbane means different things for me now with having a family here, but it still reminds me of my independence. I still go to the movies on my own from time to time, take myself out for meals occasionally and stroll solo along the river in South Bank. I feel free here. Free to be myself and free to like who I have become. My mental health is better here. I am a better person here.
We may not stay forever in Brisbane. There is still the dream of being by the beach on the Sunny Coast somewhere after all. But Brisbane grew my business, and it grew my career and professional development. It gave me a future when I was unsure of whether I had a future. I will always be forever grateful for the gift of a life to get excited about.
Newcastle has my past; Brisbane is my present and whether we stay here or not Brisbane is still the reason why I have a future.
