HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: 'It's been three years since we all left town.'

Any regrets?

What about now?

Three years ago, my family left the city. That's me, my partner Brent, our two (then) primary-school-aged kids and our (then) dog, Elvi.

Those two bracketed 'thens' illustrate how life just keeps racing on up ahead. My daughter is now in Year Nine. My son starts high school in January. Our beautiful Elvi died. We adopted Tuna, her "sister" (in family lore only, you understand).

Holly with her adopted dog, Tuna. Image: Supplied.

And it's the most commonly asked question by people who know me, and by people who read or listen to the things I make.

So, any regrets about the tree change?

What about now?

We were part of a great wave of COVID-era regional migration. We (co-incidentally) moved out of Sydney on the same weekend the city went into its second and longest lockdown. I wrote about that, here and here. Tree-changing was big, driven by both the unbearable proximity of locked-in families and the sudden possibility of remote work. The highway south was bumper-to-bumper dreamers, longing for more space, more freedom and praying for a solid internet connection.

Although it happened suddenly, we had been plotting for a while. First, we almost moved to an island. In one of the many sliding doors moments that defines a life, being rejected for a rental application at the very last moment because of our big, scary staffy (Elvi was neither, but I get it) shifted everything. Would we have loved living in a tiny community on a dot of land in the Hawkesbury? I'm reasonably sure, yes. But a daily commute in a storm-buffeted tinnie was not to be.

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We moved, instead, a couple of hours south of Sydney. First, we rented in a pretty little country town, popular with day-trippers and brides. And then, when it became clear we were going to put down mortgage-scale roots, we moved ten minutes down a pot-holed road towards the water instead, to a village that sits at the end of a beach, on the mouth of a river. It's got a pub, a club and a handful of shops that close on Sundays. It's got one fancy hotel and several caravan parks. It's a 20-minute drive from a mid-sized town with fast food, supermarkets and sports ovals. It's the kind of place people retire to because it's peaceful and it's flat and it's cheaper than the pretty country town.

And now, here we are. Although very much not retired.

So, any regrets?

Sometimes, when the power goes out, as it did for five hours last Saturday evening for about the third time this year, I wonder about our old life.

Sometimes, when it takes me two weeks to get an appointment with my doctor and the specialist visit is a two-hour round trip, I decide it is more complicated, living in the regions.

Sometimes, when I am driving my daughter to [insert any place here — sport, friend's, shops, part-time job] I remember buses and trains. And how teenagers can use them to, you know, go places without you.

Sometimes, when I would like to have another glass of wine, I remember plentiful taxis. And Ubers.

But sometimes, in fact, right now, today, this minute, I sit writing in the little room we built at the bottom of the garden (a garden!) and the silence pours in along with the yellow light from the window and I can feel calm settling on me like one of those weighted blankets that are $139.99 on the Internet.

This morning Brent, Tuna and I walked along the river and watched the sun reaching across the sky over an empty beach that stretches for miles. We count wallabies on the path back through the fringing forest and we call into the bakery — where everyone knows your name and your coffee order — on the way home. 

My son is calmer here, and my daughter is more confident. Brent is less stressed. 

And I've changed, too.

Holly with her partner, Brent and their kids. Image: Supplied.

I'm more patient. More accepting of things being the way they are (like, there's no power til we're not sure when and the one shop's run out of exactly what you want). I'm less judgemental. Meeting a whole raft of new people who do all kinds of different things with their time and their lives has made me more accepting, more curious. Less likely to swim only in a like-minded cohort. I'm in awe of the many community organisers, who inspire me to be better, more connected. And I have a hobby that regulates my mood in a way I never thought possible. I'm speaking, of course, of looking after my veggie beds. 

Because we have space for veggie beds here. And some little citrus trees. And I step out in the morning with my coffee and I check on my plants and I bend to them to see who's thriving and who's struggling and I feel full-up. And I did not know that about myself.

Don't misunderstand me, we don't live on a big country block. We don't live in the "country" at all. We live regionally, outside of a major city, in a fairly ordinarily sized suburban house, with a bit of garden at the front and a bit of garden at the back. We have neighbours a couple of feet away on both sides. It's just — none of that was going to happen in Sydney. Or, if it was, we would have had to almost destroy ourselves to make it so.

Space and time are the things pulling people from cities. The impossibility of what was once "normal" in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane or Perth — being able to live somewhere you like without working unsustainably to manage it. The wild idea of wanting to see your kids sometimes. Or of not having the kind of debt that sits on your chest to tap you awake at night with worry.  

These are the reasons so many millennials are doing what we did (much later) and moving out of cities to regional centres and their satellite towns. Twenty-five per cent more people are moving out of cities than are moving to them in Australia right now, and that cohort are doing it well before my family plucked up the nerve.

The problem is, largely, when they get there the infrastructure's not there to meet them. See above, power cuts. Roads that close and wash out and break. Not enough doctors. Limited school choice and teacher shortages. Patchy public transport. These are the issues that flood regional Facebook groups. Roads. Trains. Schools. Hospitals. Oh, and someone needs a hand with a trailer, there are plants left out the front of no 72 for takers and that white dog's out and about again. 

So, any regrets?

No regrets. Some shrugs of acceptance. Some understanding that there's no such thing as a perfect choice. And broadly, a sense of wonder that we made that bold decision at all, and that it wasn't too late for our family and everyone in it to change, and that we'll probably all change again, many more times, and that our lives are so much richer for it. 

Because of my work, my life is divided between the city and the quiet, which suits me. My kids live mostly in the quiet, which suits them. I imagine they'll find their way up to the city too, in time, and that will be their own adventure. And in the meantime, we're sitting here watching attitudes to 'regional' living shifting in real-time. 

It's not perfect, but nothing is. 

Except for the sunrise over my local beach.

Read more of our moving-out stories:

• 'I've moved 23 times in 25 years and learned one thing.'
• There's a reason you're finding it hard to get a rental if you have kids.
• Hundreds of applicants and 'rent-bidding': The reality of trying to rent a house right now.

Feature image: Supplied.