This week I’m finally applying to become an Australian citizen. It’s almost exactly 20 years ago (4th of December to be precise) that I moved to Australia with my boyfriend at the time so he could be in a band with his brother. I had no real desire to move to Australia. Not that I didn’t want to, I just had no idea at all about what I wanted to do with my life. I was 22 and the day I handed in my final assignment at Uni, was the day I moved to Melbourne.
Memories of those first few weeks in Melbourne are clouded by cheap pots and smoky bars. I wasn’t too worried about getting a job because I had a fancy new degree in Visual Communication Design so surely I wouldn’t struggle to find work… 4 months later I was working at a sandwich bar in Melbourne Central because I had absolutely no work experience and didn’t know how to use the standard design software here having used different programs in New Zealand.
Looking back at my portfolio now, it showed little of what I was capable of and was massive. I still have it in the garage, the A3 black folding case with my name embossed in silver on the bottom left hand corner. I vividly remember being told by recruitment agencies that I needed to come back once I’d learnt how to use InDesign and having to carry that stupid, heavy portfolio back home was like sprinkling salt in the wound of my rejection. It’s physical weight amplifying the shame of not getting a job.
I must have applied for 100 jobs in the first 6 months of living in Australia. Luckily my boyfriend got work straight away but I felt quite dejected by the country for a while there. It was the first time I’d lived away from my family and my first crack at living completely independently. It was tough. It was also heaps of fun because I was 22 and living in Melbourne. There was pretty much a gig every night and there was a massive crew of Wellingtonians who had moved over to play music. The music scene in Melbourne was huge… is huge. If you wanted to see live music you just stepped outside.
I eventually got a design related job at Oxford University Press (I’d applied to be a receptionist months earlier) and thus started my ‘career’ as a graphic designer. It took close to 10 months for a tertiary educated, English speaking, white female to get a ‘proper’ job in Australia. I didn’t have a name that was difficult to pronounce. I didn’t look different and I had a beautiful kiwi accent. I had so many advantages to begin with and still found settling in difficult.
At that time, I never would’ve imagined that I’d be applying to become an Australian citizen some twenty years later. Married to an Australian, with two Australian children living in Regional Victoria. On reflection, I’ve never really had a solid long term plan for myself. I’ve always flowed with the tide. Once I married Matt, we settled down into raising a family and putting everything we had into HUCX.
It’s not like I haven't had my own dreams or aspirations but I’ve felt like the best supporting actress in my own life rather than the lead role most of the time. This excludes the main part I play as the Mum where I’m very much the star! These last few weeks since we let HUCX go we’ve had to take stock of what's important to us, as a family and as individuals. I like to think that becoming an Australian Citizen is symbolic of me taking the leading role in the next phase of my life.
Becoming a citizen would give me the opportunity to vote, which after watching the US this week is so important. It would open up the opportunity for future study if that's what I wanted to do. It would also mean that I can’t get deported - it’s been a fear of mine that I’d commit an accidental crime and be sent back to New Zealand forever.
Becoming an Australian Citizen doesn’t mean I’m any less a kiwi. I’ve often battled with this identity crisis but nothing can ever take away the fact that I lived the first 22 years of my life in New Zealand. When I go back to NZ I feel so grateful that there are several lounges I can walk into and be embraced with loving arms. I will always hear a Tui bird call and be instantly connected to the land. It’s a privilege to be able to have two places I can call home. Fingers crossed the Australian Government feels the same way.
