Formation

I always considered myself a bit of a nomad. I couldn't wait to leave my hometown after going to a total of 3 schools (one very briefly - a post in itself) and living in 2 houses that I could actually remember. I lived in a very safe little family - Mum and Dad, a sister and a brother, me being the eldest.  I left home as soon as I had finished school, well after I enjoyed a month or so of a summer break that comes with new-found freedoms of turning 18 during the HSC and getting a new boyfriend just before said HSC (resulting in lousy HSC marks and another dozen posts at least!).
I went to Sydney to live with my Mum's cousin and her husband to start my first job. Then very quickly moved out of their place in with my boyfriend to King's Cross - shock horror! An enlightening experience, especially for my parents, but one that has probably shaped me more than if I had stayed in my hometown. No, I didn't develop a drug habit or anything like that - it showed me a different side of the world to the one that I had grown up in. I only lived in The Cross for 3 months, but the Eastern Sydney area was to feature in a large part of my formation.
I moved in with some old school friends out in the suburbs for a couple of months and then, when I started my Enrolled Nursing training, found myself living just down the road from my old haunt of The Cross, in the slightly more upmarket (then - now it's gone through the roof!) suburb of Pott's Point. I moved there so I was close to St Vincent's Hospital. We weren't allowed to live in the Nurses Home, which would have been so much easier, as we were "special funded" to help overcome the nursing shortage that came about when nursing training was transferred from the Hospital system to the Tertiary Education System. Good for me as it meant I could test the water so to speak, before throwing myself into 3 years of unpaid study and find that I hated it at the end. If I liked, I could then pay my way through my course. Win win.
I finished my training, the first group of ENs to go through the TAFE system, then kept working at Vinnie's and moved around a little bit - into the nurses home (we were eventually allowed to), then Camperdown, Leichhardt, Balmain and finally Lane Cove. All inner suburbs before eventually crossing the bridge again. I did start my Diploma to become an RN but after the first year of full-time study while trying to work, I gave myself' a year off and stayed at Vinnie's working in the Renal ward, before leaving after 6 months and eventually finding a job in bank. Why? who knows. It was different, I didn't have to work shift work and I got paid a bit better. I hated it though.
Two years later, having married the aforementioned boyfriend, we decided to leave Sydney. Being in my early 20's I would have happily gone back to my hometown and settled down and had babies. But no, we ended up moving to Townsville! He had a sister up there, who was telling us how great it was - at the time Sydney was having record rains and it was downright depressing - I was also still working in the bank. I agreed so long as I could go back to nursing and Uni.
Another 7 addresses later, a marriage breakdown, a BNSc in hand and pregnant - I eventually moved back to my hometown, where I would stay for another 16 years (less 4 months when I thought Sydney would be a good idea again - another whole raft of posts there!).
I'm now sitting in a town in Central West NSW, having come via a village of 400 40km out of town. Why?
God knows! Literally!
But more on that later.