Reminiscing
It is Levi’s 37th birthday today. I cannot believe where the years have gone. And I have just had an add up. I have lived in 14 different houses since he was born. Even I struggle to get my head around that many shifts. That total includes seven different towns/districts with each move to a new area meaning a new start and making new friends.
Levi was born in the lovely Rawene hospital on the shores of the Hokianga harbour in 1985, my third child to be born there. My then husband, Paul, and I lived across the water on our farm near Kohukohu. A year or two later, Paul wanted to go shearing again and so we moved back down to Pio Pio where we had lived before. We initially stayed in Paul’s brother’s house before moving to Aria and renting a home there, later buying our own home in that small settlement. Aria is a place like Whangamomona, with so many people I have run into having lived there themselves. ‘’Oh you won’t know where that is,’’ they would say.
Paul was offered a job back in the Hokianga in 1991 and so we moved with our now five children, up to Mitimiti, where I stayed for eight years. When Paul and I split up, I moved to Whangarei, as three of our children were boarding at Boy’s High there. They came to live with me. I read that that hostel is closing down at the end of this year. That is a shame, because it provided a great opportunity for rural boys to get the sporting and other opportunities they would not have had at their own districts. I rented two houses there, for one year each, before moving to New Plymouth to study journalism. My three oldest boys all left home that year, just leaving my youngest two to accompany me. I asked around before I chose that city to move to. Everyone I met had favourable things to say about the place, with many commenting. “Oh, that was a great place, I used to live there.” I did wonder, that if it was so good, why weren’t all these people still living there, but I was to do the same thing myself. And I am the one saying now, “Oh, that was a great place to live.’’ I rented first before buying my own home. Once qualified, I moved back to Whangarei for my first reporting job, staying four years and living in three rentals during that time. That is the downside of renting, that the landlords can reclaim their houses at any time as happened with one of these. From there I worked in Outback Australia for four months before moving back to New Plymouth and my own house. Both my younger two had finished their schooling by this stage. I was fortunate, in that the tenants gave their notice at the same time I left my Whangarei job and was able to move back to my house when I returned to New Zealand. I would not have like to have asked them to leave. That was one of the few times when I didn’t actually have a reason for moving, other than to return to my house. I had no idea what I would do at that stage but was fortunate to get another journalism job shortly after arriving.
After I got pericarditis, I moved to Hawkes Bay and undertook a year-long massage diploma course, private boarding with a lovely lady at Havelock North. It was back to New Plymouth when the course finished and I stayed there until 2014, building up my massage clientele until I moved up here.
My life has changed direction many times. Twice the pericarditis has been responsible for me shifting occupations, at other times, just a knowing that there is something else in the pipeline for me. I learnt long ago to trust that things would work out for me. They always have and I am sure they always will. The good thing about all these shifts is I have made new friends at all the places I have moved to, people I would not have met otherwise, and in cases such as the newspapers in Whangarei and New Plymouth, people from my previous lives. I am sure a higher force has been behind many of these moves.
I do feel settled where I am now, partly because three of my children live nearby. It would be silly to move further from my grandchildren. But then again, who knows what lies ahead in the future?