Umm, yea, actually, i have....

I was asked today, by someone who had been reading my blog - have you ever thought of leaving Dubbo ? For those of you who do not know - presumably because you are not Australian and, thusly, have never heard of it - Dubbo is the name of the town i live in. I prefer to refer to it is " DubVegas ", purely because it is so NOT like Las Vegas at all.

Anyhoo, my answer to the question was " Actually, yea, heaps ". He then wanted to know why i wasnt more motivated to actually leave and not just think about it a lot. It was a brief conversation but i've been thinking on it for the last few hours. He seemed to think that leaving - that throwing myself out there in the big wide world - would do me some good. That it would force me to meet more people, different people, people who could do wonders for me. And i understand that but there are two things i keep coming back to:
1. Just how do i go about leaving ?
and
2. What if it has the opposite of the desired effect ?

Lets confront those issues, in turn. Firstly, how do i go about getting out ? Do i think of a suitable place to move to, somewhere that i would like to live, and then find a house and a job ? Or do i look for available jobs and houses and then move wherever there is work and accomodation? Do i move somewhere far enough away that i'm out on my own but still close enough to visit family and friends regularly ? Or do i move interstate, across country, and be entirely and utterly alone ? the second part of this issue is i'm not entirely sure what kind of work i would do. I have a job, a career even, but i'm not sure i want to be an optical dispenser forever and, besides that, its the not the kind of occupation that has vacant positions all the time. I'm thinking it might be difficult to find work in that field, at least in area that i would be happy to live in.

Secondly, what if the move has the opposite effect than what i intended? That is, my whole reason for moving would be to be happier - to make new friends, have new adventures, find new horizons. But what if that didnt happen ? What if i couldnt find people i was compatible with and i retreated into the shadows of depression again ? i wouldnt even be near family and friends who already loved me and could lend their support. I'd be alone, and three thousand times lonlier. Would i have to come slinking home with my tail between my legs and a dark cloud over my head?

Dont get me wrong, the more i think on it the more it is something that i will seriously look into. But it cant be something that i rush, i'd want to be pretty sure of what i was doing and confident that i could turn things around if something went wrong.

The last thing i'd want is to feel trapped again by my own decisions.