The Search Had Already Begun

By the time I write these words on 24 August, I have not even returned to Perth to collect my car.

But something else has already begun.

The search.

Perry Lakes ended my employment on 19 August.

That same day, I started applying for jobs.

Not the following week. Not after I had driven home. Not after I had given myself a month to work out what had just happened.

That day.

Among the first were General Manager roles with Chelsea and District Basketball Association and the Goulburn Valley League.

Over the next days the applications and enquiries continued across basketball, sport, operations and commercial leadership.

The SEEK activity I can see tonight captures at least twenty-two roles or application actions between 19 and 21 August alone, including opportunities with Bunbury Basketball, Basketball Victoria, Southern Peninsula Basketball, City of Swan, Curtin University, Darebin City Council, Doncaster Basketball and the Mornington Peninsula Football Netball League, alongside operations, strategy, membership, sales and business development roles.

Some applications were lodged directly through SEEK. Others took me to an employer’s application site. The point is not the exact count.

The point is that I was moving.

There is probably a version of me from a few years ago who would have responded very differently to what happened at Perry Lakes.

I know that because I met him after Bulleen.

He went home. He closed the curtains. He stopped functioning.

This time, I opened SEEK.

That distinction might sound trivial on a page. To me, it is enormous.

The greatest evidence of how far I have come is not a title, a photograph or a number on the scales.

It is what I did on day seventy-three. I kept going.