So I moved interstate from a city I really hated down to Melbourne, Australia late 2017.
I moved here for the vibrancy, the culture and liveability for which the city is well known. In fact, it recently ranked as the world's most liveable city. I love the arts and culture, but honestly other than gigs don't engage that often with that sort of thing.
However - there's a lot of issues on my end. I'm really burnt out on being packed into public transport or stuck in traffic on my commute. Living affordability is low closer to my work meaning I'm in the outer suburbs, which is fine as I enjoy where I live, but population growth here is out of control, which is largely due to systemic infrastructure oversights (2005 public transport and roads infrastructure reports were woefully inadequate for current population growth). The city's population is set to double by 2040 from 4 million to 8 million.
Drivers here are fucking insane and very aggressive and selfish (much like the last city I lived in) and, whilst driving used to be my favourite activity, I now hate it and get anxiety about it anywhere I need to drive. It's honestly disheartening as I love nothing more than a nice long drive to clear my head.
Lately I've been getting out of the city every week just to escape it. I have bipolar and generalised anxiety, and feel a sort of constant background perceptual stress just from being surrounded by so many people.
I don't have kids and my social life here is basically limited to one or two friends I barely see, a couple of tabletop RPG groups and the music magazine team I work and meet up with once a month. Therefore, I don't actually have any heavy investment in the place.
We have been looking at jobs in a nearby regional area (Surf Coast) and my partner has found a few leads, after two years of applying for jobs with nil success. It's an hour from this city, only one of us has a car so I'd be looking for jobs in the region, which have plenty of work for me (social work). However I'd also be giving up working for a very progressive and positive organisation who treat me really well and have a great job (very rare in this industry).
I don't know if this is a question or a rant, really. I feel the pull towards the coastal lifestyle (grew up near the beach), but I'm worried about losing out if I leave this city. I'm also not sure if I have grass-is-greener syndrome and the novelty of moving somewhere quiet would wear off or potentially even thwart simple living (a long commute, need for a second car, etc). Any advice would be appreciated. :)
Submitted March 20, 2019 at 08:18PM by Bdi89 https://ift.tt/2W6KVhE
