I keep having the funniest moments of nostalgia for Brisbane even though I haven’t left yet. My flatmates Luke and Lily were standing in my bedroom doorway eating a bowl of leftover rice noodle salad the other afternoon. Their bedroom is across the hall and we were having a chat in the fading afternoon heat about the course of our days. Luke was still dressed from work, and I was turned from my computer when suddenly I realised I was going to miss that. Having those two eating in my doorway while we were catching up on our days. As I have two months until I leave I am trying not to turn it into a epic sob fest. So I turned and tapped at my keyboard before I cried.
Then today I found this photo of my friend Leon in the kitchen at Forbes street. Leon and I have known each other since we were 14. We grew up in the same country town and spent weekends lounging, with that slouch only bored teenagers can affect, around the empty streets of Murwillumbah. If I could summarise him with words they would be smart, insightful, reliable, deeply affectionate and steady. And his is the kind of reliable that revives that word from the curse of being a particularly boring one. Reliably my friend. But I know when I am gone we won’t write, or talk on the phone (unless its one of those drunken group phone calls I anticipate receiving for the first bit of not being here, when I am missed the most). And words and phone calls don’t matter with someone like Leon – he will just be there, same as when I left.
But Forbes street probably won’t exist when I come back, and Leon will almost certainly have set up camp elsewhere with his beloved Lizzy. This photo makes me miss him and all the nights at Forbes street, and all the people who have been my Brisbane family for 10 long years, before I have even said goodbye.