I used to live by the beach

The day has finally come for me to leave Sydney.

I never thought I would stay as long as I did.  I only ever thought I would stay for a few years, but instead it's been over 7 years.

I never liked Sydney to begin with.  I was stuck in the city and it just didn't appeal to me.  It didn't have that much life to it and I still remember feeling exceptionally bored on the weekends when people would desert the city centre.  Things changed a lot once I moved to Coogee.

I have grown to love the place.  I didn't even realise that it had become my home.

Without even initially realising it, I have lived in the paradise that many aspire to and I am glad that I was able to come to that understanding with enough time to appreciate it.

There were so many random little things I would miss.  Just the feeling I got on the weekend of walking down to the beach and having a milkshake at a local cafe on Coogee Bay Road or up at the Spot.  That was always hard to beat.  I liked becoming the local.  With the local shops recognising me.  I would get a nicer greeting at the butchers or the bakery.  The waitresses would give familiar smile when I sat down.

Just looking at Coogee beach on a busy day also used to make me happy.  There was a lively atmosphere to the place which was warm and inviting.  Coogee has never been a surfing beach, so unlike some of the other beaches around Sydney there were always far less of the posers seeking to be seen.  It was more of a family beach where people would come with their kids to spend the day.

It wasn't just any beach for me anymore either.  It was home.  When I looked out at the sands and the water, I felt a level of belonging that I really hadn't felt since I had been in Melbourne as a kid.  I had never felt any affinity with Canberra and it was only after I had left Singapore that I had started to appreciate it properly.  This place was different though as I had become part of the surroundings.  I was most certainly one of the locals of Coogee now and there were more than enough of the cafes and bars which recognised me as such.  Like other locals, dressed in my scrappy clothes and thongs, I would wander in without challenge whilst the out of towners would be dressed up in their fancier clothes.  I remembered one day in particular at the fancy new Coogee Pavillion when I wandered in with Sarah.  The Pavillion is one of the new places to be and to be seen in Sydney.  Sarah looked mortified with how I was dressed as I walked in.  I must have looked close to homeless in my board shorts, old t-shirt and thongs, but the security happily waved me in.  Others around were a bit shocked as they had clearly put in a huge amount of effort to look good for a night out at the Pavillion.  This acknowledgement of the locals seemed to have been part of a wider desire to keep the "beachiness" in place.

I really did love hanging by the beach, and when I wasn't at the beach I would be at a cafe.  There would be the ones I loved on Coogee Bay Road or up at the Spot, but on occasion I would also go a bit further out to Surry Hills to get myself a ginger broulee tart at Bourke Street Bakery.

I stuck my head out of my apartment window one last time to look out at the view I used to have.  Well... the view I had if I stuck my head out the window!  I lived a few hundred metres from the beach!  I lived within a few minutes walk of the sand between my toes, the ocean breeze through my hair and the sun of my face.

I was leaving all of this now.  It was time to go.