Happy 35th Birthday: A Life Update

I’ve spent two birthdays in Australia. That’s a strange thought to wake up with today.

Happy 35th birthday to me. 

It’s a big one in so many ways. Generally, 35 is no longer new to being thirty-something. I’m in the bit where I start saying goodbye to my thirties. The years, before I knew it, started adding up. I’ve built a whole-ass life.That I chose. That I pursued. That is no longer new. That I live in. 

For me, personally, I am settled in. For the first time ever in my life, I am truly settled in. I actively made the life I lead. I did not happen into this existence. Nothing was an accident. Everything down to my underwear have been intentionally chosen and worked for. I know where I am at. I don’t know where I’m headed, but I know the direction and a lot more than I used to. I don’t have a map, but I did find some vibes. 

This is really the first time I am putting out into the world what I’ve been doing for the last year and a half, even three years. It’s been alluded to, but I haven’t talked about my life. I’m a writer, it’s what I do. But, for so many reasons I couldn’t talk about it. Most of them: stress. And some of them: visa-related. 

Going into my 32 birthday, I was the happiest, most secure, optimistic version of myself. I’d had an amazing six months and was looking into my thirties with so much joy and love. So, I got on a plane to Australia and Cambodia and Australia again. And, I met Kate.

Every semblance of a plan went out the window somewhere between a kombucha shattering in a Northcote laneway and watching the blooming canola crops through tears. Not long later, Kate and I were sat in Preston at her dining room table when she said, “I want you to come on a partner visa.” 

Let the saga unfold… In writing for another time. 

We spent all our savings on a prospective marriage visa. Let me tell you! It is the most anticlimactic way to spend $10,000. You get a receipt and an email that basically says “now wait.”

I worked really fucking hard and long hours. I saved, so did Kate. I spent all my savings on vet trips and vaccinations and certificates and eventually plane tickets. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t read. I didn’t write. I worked. And, I spent a fuckton of time with my people and my dogs. I ate all the food. I went to all the places I love and the ones I wanted to go to again. I really lived so full on for a year and a half. Somewhere between all that, I also talked to Kate every night, all night because time differences suck, and I would have nothing to do but sleep soon enough. 

There were so many delays and setbacks. Mostly dog related. We just kept on with our  “now wait” for my visa. Oh, what can you do? The hard part really started to set in when I gave notice at work. Started declining invitations for events. Only seeing my most favorite people. Being the main event at going away parties. Packing my house. Going to final vet vaccinations.

At 10:30pm on Saturday, November 16, Dylan and I walked out of our house for the last time. I gave Beau, Bear, and Tessa a kiss. I watched his truck that used to be our truck with a trailer full of things that used to be our stuff but is now his stuff pull out of our driveway for the last time with our dogs. I crumpled. Then I got in my car with Makeda, Duke, and Alexa, my friend who is now family and drove away from my home for the last time. Yet another saga…

I want to say this for myself and in general. I love my dogs. More than anything in the whole world. I want them to have the best lives. I had six. I lost Knight to cancer in April 2024. I couldn’t take Beau to Australia. She’s a boxer and an old girl. The trip plus the quarantine would have been too much. Bear is far too bonded to Beau. Tessa, well, we’ll get to her. I would have never moved to Australia or anywhere if I didn’t know for certain my dogs are taken care of. They live with their dad, who they have lived with since the day they came into our lives. Happily and safely and so loved by their forever parents. We coparent intercontinentally. 

On November 29, 2024, 457 days of intercontinental long distance engagement, I moved to Melbourne, Australia. With my two dogs—Duke and Makeda—and three suitcases. 

And without a visa. To be very clear. There was no illegal anything happening. I promise. I had a tourist visa, which allowed me to stay up to three months at a time with as many entrances into the country as I wanted. I just couldn’t work. And had to do an international trip every 90 days. This is where I could write a sermon of Catholic proportion to extoll the incredible fortitude my fiancée possessed for way longer than she should have. Kate loves me. A lot. Here’s why. I moved in with two dogs AND no idea when I’d legally be allowed to permanently stay in the country and get a job to contribute to funding myself beyond vacuuming. Visa stress is not something I wish on anyone. I immigrated legally with funds, support, love, fun, travel, a life, and no melanin or visible markers of otherness. It was still unbearable.   

Kate broke her arm in Bali, something something don’t go chasing waterfalls. Kate got a new job. We moved into an amazing house. I did traveling every three months. We spent so much time falling in love in person, going on dates, doing nothing, watching TV together, having weekends away, seeing friends. And all the while, we never stopped waiting and stressing. Boy, that visa took its sweet time coming.

Which it did. Another email. On October 10, 2025. This time so much more exciting, although a really dull read without the adrenaline and massive sense of relief.

Two days later, I applied for a job.

On October 31, I started my position as Studio Manager at The Beautiful Bunch, a not-for-profit flower shop, helping provide training and experience to women of migrant and refugee backgrounds. Somehow, I managed to combine my experience with flowers (thank you Amanda Bee’s), running a business (thank you freelancing but mostly Amanda Bee’s), and social justice. It’s pretty insane this is my job. Oh, and I only work four days a week. Which leaves time for life, dogs, Amanda Bee’s, writing, fun. Work-life balance. It’s a foreign concept. I am not good at it. 

Things couldn’t just be chill, though.

I made a promise to someone, and I needed to keep it. In March, I flew to Chicago to keep that promise. After seeing Beau, Bear, and Tessa for the first time in almost a year and a half (oh, my heart), Tessa and I got in a rental car, said hello to my alma mater and home town, played in the snow capped mountains, drove through the desert, camped the Grand Canyon, lunched in Vegas, played with a cat in San Diego (thank you again Alexa), went to the beach for her first time at Venice Beach, and got on a plane. After the worst 25-day quarantine story, my life became fully my life at 9:48am on May 8, 2026, two days before Mother’s Day. 

Everything I was working for had arrived. 

This is a crazy life. I unintentionally epitomize “Do it for the plot.” I have not led an average or common life. So much of it has been ridiculously hard and cruel. 

Often life is something we kind of fall into haphazardly and make the best of it. I’ve done that so many times. At 32, I was going into life really intentionally because I knew what I wanted, and I wanted peace. Since meeting Kate, nothing has been particularly peaceful but everything has been an active choice. I chose Kate. We chose Australia and the visa together. I had three suitcases; I chose every single thing that went in. We waited for the right house and we only applied for this one. I wanted my job, and I only applied for my job. What we buy, do, eat, spend is intentional and, if it’s not life sustaining, it brings us joy or adventure. 

I love this life. Making it happen was ridiculously hard in a really new way. It was hard because I was living, not because I was drowning. 

So things to catch up on since I haven’t written, posed for pictures, updated social media, so on and so forth.  

I Have More

1. love
2. wrinkles 
3. grey hairs
4. money
5. time
6. weight
7. peace
8. visa
9. tea

I Have Less

1. stress
2. dogs
3. money
4. independence
5. worries
6. space
7. books

I’ve Traveled To

1. Bali — March 2025
2. The Philippines — June 2025
3. United States — September 2025
4. Bali — November 2025
5. Tasmania — January 2026
6. United States —March/April 2026

It’s my birthday. I’m happy. I’m on a trip with my future wife and our three dogs. I have gone to sleep next to her more nights than I haven’t since we met. The dogs are living a huge life with pubs and beaches and dog parks and moms home five days a week. Tessa and Elmer are obsessed with each other. Things are good, and they have been, and I think they will be.