The Weekend That Changed Purpose

The flight booking from 8 August has become a small but important detail.

When I originally booked the flights, they had a completely different purpose.

My U16 Maroondah Magic team, which includes Jordan, was due to play a semi-final on 12 September. Even though I was living and working in Perth, I had every intention of getting back to Melbourne to coach them.

That was important to me.

I had moved across Australia to rebuild my career, but I was still Jordan’s dad and still his coach. Living in Perth was never supposed to mean disappearing from the parts of his life that mattered.

So on 8 August, I booked the flights.

At that point there was nothing unusual about them. They were simply part of the balancing act I had accepted when I moved west: work in Perth, family in Melbourne, and flights when I needed to be there for the moments that mattered.

Then, on 19 August, the unthinkable happened.

My employment at Perry Lakes ended.

Suddenly there was no longer any need to preserve a September trip from Perth to Melbourne. I was not going to be living in Perth by then.

So I paid another $350 and changed the booking.

I brought the Melbourne leg forward so I could get home and spend the weekend with my family after everything that had happened.

I also changed the return leg so that tomorrow, 25 August, I can fly back to Perth one final time.

But I am not going back to work.

I am going back to leave.

Tonight, 24 August, I am sitting in Melbourne with my family.

Tomorrow morning I will board a flight west, land in Perth, return to Adelaide Terrace, load the last of my belongings into the car and hand back the keys to an apartment I had expected to call home for the next twelve months.

Then I will fill the tank.

And drive east.

There is something extraordinary about how quickly the meaning of a plane ticket can change.

On 8 August, those flights represented a future in Perth and my determination to remain present in my son’s life despite living on the other side of Australia.

Sixteen days later, the booking has become part of the logistics of dismantling that future.

The flight west tomorrow is not taking me back to my job.

It is taking me back to collect what is left of my Perth life so I can bring it home.