The other day I had to hand in my licence in order to get a QLD licence in order to get my passport. To move forward I have to hand in the past. The whole thing was really difficult, just because up here nothing has the same rhyme or reason as the other Eastern states. It was just hard to work out what exactly to do and hard to find the time to do it. When I had finally got it all changed over I was in tears.
Why, and why tell you, whoever is out there? It was seeing that girl at the dept of transport throw my licence under her computer screen, like it did not matter, that really got to me. I would never have had such a link to my VIC licence if it wasn't the last thing I had that reminds me of Marysville on a daily basis. It never meant that much when I got it. I remember having to drive for over an hour to the nearest office to get it sorted out and I thought Victorians were backwards.
The picture on it was fairly crap. It was the address, the last place we lived in Marysville before it burnt down two months later. Even though we werem't living there when it happened it was still a huge shock, and came at a time when we realised how much we hated our new jobs and situation. We hadn't even finished our mail rediversion, it actually expired on the same day as the fires went through and I had been seriously contemplating just extending it as we were being lazy. It was nice to feel connected still to our past where at least things made sense. All our friends were there and we were talking every few days like we were just on holiday and due back 'next week'.
After the fires everything felt very strange and there was nothing to connect us to anywhere anymore and our friends were all adrift as well. When we all came to QLD it was like being back in VIC again, but hotter.
The licence change saga began when Michael had to change his rego a few months agao. We had all been driving around with our VIC plates, as a reminder that we are not from this loopy place and have a past where we were all in it together. When Michael changed his plates, I looked for every way possible to avoid it, but the passport wins out.
It is a way forward, and discarding the past is the only way for me to get there.
Grandma Forrest had an old saying, 'that when one door closes another one opens.' I see the door handle in your hand. The memories that we all share for Marysville we'll hold in our hearts.
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