“I am going to make it through this year if it kills me!”

I have been saying that I would start a blog to document this horrendous shock to the system of moving from Melbourne Australia to Jacksonville Florida USA. So here goes…. I am not sure how this will turn out as I am not much of a writer. I’m also a horrible typist so I tend to lose lovely bits of prose as my fingers refuse to keep up with my brain. But I will give it a go (at least for a little while).

Where to start? Perhaps a little about me and how I have gotten into this situation. I am an American who has lived in Australia on and off for the last 13 years. My longest stint in the country was 5 consecutive years from 2003 until 3 weeks ago. Ageing parents, Melbourne’s exorbitant house prices and a desire to travel prompted my partner (let’s call him H) and me to return to the US. When choosing American cities, we focused on Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston – big, vibrant, left-leaning cities where indie bands actually tour. But the pickings were, well, non-existent, and then H got an offer to come to Jacksonville with his company. When the choice was move to the US in this uncertain economic climate with a job or without, it was a no brainer. So here we are in Jacksonville – honestly grateful for this opportunity!

Now with this blog/journal/whatever – it would be easy to bitch and moan about this town and totally mock it from the get go, but I don’t want to do that. This morning I was looking at few existing blogs about JAX and was inspired by the bloggers passion to make Jacksonville better/more livable, to create a cultural outlet for inner city residents and to present a hipper side to the city.

But I don’t think I can do that either – not yet. Why? Because I don’t love this city nor do I know it well enough. I had never been here before we moved here, have no friends and no attachments to it whatsoever. It’s totally new and I want to be objective and honest – present the good and the bad – as H and I uncover it. Three weeks in and we are honestly raw from the initial cultural bitch slap we have gotten. It’s so different from what we know, need and want.

Over the years, I’ve fallen madly love with cities that have wooed me with their elegance, worldliness and charm. Jacksonville by contrast seems conservative, dowdy and somewhat dangerous – a suitor that would never catch my eye/interest except for the fact that we have been thrown together by necessity. I am not sure what we’ll have in common…. But this is all superficial at this stage. There’s no initial attraction/chemistry, but I need to keep myself open and look for the good that lies below the surface. Perhaps then we can be friends or at least acquaintances.