It’s the end of July and I am wearing my winter boots, long sleeve top with two more layers on top of that, my scarf, gloves and a beanie. I never thought Australia would ever be this cold. “Welcome to Melbourne winter,” I am told by a local. I have been living here for 10 months now and boy has my life changed, I have changed.

When the idea of moving to Melbourne, Australia came to me I never knew how much I would be putting myself through. I have moved so much within the state of California and even went to study abroad in England, I said to myself, this will be that much of a difference. Boy was I wrong. I came here knowing I wasn’t wanting to be in a relationship with the guy I was talking to long distance while still home in L.A. For the first month everything was ok with him and I, but I started changing and he started changing. The move started affecting me, I had attained my first job and then lost it in three weeks, brutal lesson to learn about how hospitality works here, it’s either you sink of swim with no training.

10 months into my stay here and I have had plenty of nights where I have fallen asleep crying because I am missing my family and especially my dog Bruce. Asking myself what I am doing? what I had set out to do? Did I make the right decision? I have done what I set out to do, which is to live in another country and experience what it is like. I have a few moments when I just wanted to give up and move back, but I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. I needed to hang in there and believe in myself. I am an immigrant on a working holiday visa and it feels weird to not have the same rights or job opportunities as an Australian.

I am still just a waitress, but after many jobs in a span of 10 months I have found a decent one. With good pay at that. I do not miss working for tips at all not having a secure income and having to be fake to customers just to get a bigger tip off of them. Plus, the customers are way less fussy than what they are in America, they don’t need 10 sides of ranch for their one order or fries or wings. I don’t have food that is sent back consistently or complains that their food portion is too small.

I haven’t been able to find a job within my degree here either, basically because I would need a sponsorship and that is very hard to come by especially because I would still be just entry level within a company and the government wants to see that you would be high level. I have realized that no matter how many resume’s I send out I wont be getting any career offers.

So now what? what is next for me? I have two months left here, and I don’t want to go back home. I have struggled and worked hard to get a life going here for myself, that I feel like I haven’t really been able to enjoy Australia. I love my life here now, I have friends and a cool guy that I have been seeing for the past four months. He has been my teacher he doesn’t know this, but he has helped me so much in the relationship sector of my life. We have had a few arguments about the relationship, but we realized that we need to just go with the flow and enjoy what it is. I see what my life was like in LA and I was surrounded by people I didn’t respect, mostly people I worked with. I didn’t like who I was,  and was sick and tired of the look at me people. Now I have learned so much more about people, life and myself.  Especially who I want to be. Loneliness is a bitch, but if you learn to love yourself and be comfortable in your own skin, it becomes easier to handle.

So to stay here or to stay here? My family supports any of my life decisions and even though I miss them hard, I am not ready to go back. I will find a way to stay here.I love Australia.