Loneliness and Estrangement: Finding Happiness When Moving to A New Place
My Experience Living in Newcastle
I lived in Sydney for a decade before relocating to Newcastle, so it was a place I called home and fell in love with. It’s hard not to be awed with the Sydney Opera House. The sails can blend into any urban backdrop, from the skyline to the bluest horizon of the Pacific — it all depends on the angle of view.
You can spend your weekend in Chinatown or a ferry ride to Manly Beach. Not to mention the annual Sydney LGBTQ Mardi Gras. The options are endless. It is a place where any cultures and identities are celebrated. Sydney is indeed one of a kind.
A few years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, I decided to move back in with my parents due to their incurable illness. To make this possible, I sold my one-bedroom apartment in the western suburb of Sydney and moved to Newcastle, where my parents’ old house is.
Since I was unemployed, I had a lot of free time. I used it by constructing a garden in the front yard. It had been neglected for more than a decade. Eventually, I went on to landscape the entire property from the front to the back. Due to the increase in real estate prices, I couldn’t afford to buy a house, so I built a small granny flat instead. It’s a type of housing commonly known…