You only have one life

About 78 years of it if you are male.

To spend it all in one location is to my mind boring.

To not experience a variety of cultures and lifestyles is to waste your time on Earth.

I have lived in Australia for over 50 years. The first 49 were without leaving the country. I was married to a woman who had to live near her parents. It meant not being able to live on the farm I had bought at Denmark in Western Australia. You have no idea how much I loved that farm. It had views over the ocean. It was eighty acres. It was going to be sub dividable eventually. My depression when she said she would not live on it lasted for years.

She had a doctorate in rejection. Her next biggie was not wanting to buy the old apartment building across the road from the beach in Redcliffe, Queensland. It was on a huge block. We had put a deposit on it and were going to buy it with the farm money as I was not returning to WA. Hey presto. Next trick. It meant returning to Western Australia from Queensland and being depressed for three years.

When I was working eighty four hours a week working two jobs she was doing the banking. Not such a good idea. I later realised it had been one for the business, one for wifey. She left. That was OK but she took two of the children. They were the only reason I was back in WA.

A set of lies by another female then had me on a different track and I went to Singapore and then Malaysia and Thailand looking for business opportunities.

I did not find any but the difference from the Australian nanny state syndrome and the expectation of being responsible for your own actions evidenced in those countries was refreshing.

Subsequently I have lived in Thailand, South Korea, Nigeria and China.

Depression

Depression was a big factor in my life after various setbacks. When I found that my eyesight required glasses it put me in a state of depression for months which was bad timing as it corresponded with the preparation time for the Leaving exam at the end of Year 12.

I cannot remember anything about my state of mind when the Education Department refused to send me to UWA which had accepted me but insisted I spend three years doing a new course they were setting up through Perth Technical College. Based on the thoughts I have had about that time I guess I was considerably depressed.

Being married to my first wife would have resulted in frequent bouts of depression because of her conduct as a proper bitch, but she excelled herself on three occasions.

The first was when she said she would not live on the farm at Denmark. I had wanted to have a farm forever. I now had a farm that looked out over the ocean.

I spent a year designing the house we could get built on the eighty acres. Then just before Christmas in 1973 she let me know she would not live there. Devastation.

The second occasion was also related to real estate. I had sold the farm with the plan of starting a business so I could stop teaching. I cannot recommend teaching as a life’s work. After looking at many options in Queensland we eventually put a deposit on a large block of land across the road from the beach at Redcliffe, on the north side of Brisbane. It had an old apartment building on it which needed work but which provided an income. The block was large enough to have an eight storey block of apartments on it. And it looked out over the ocean. Then she pointed out she was returning to Western Australia with the children. I did not mind if she went but I wanted to be with the children. It turned out she had organised a job for me to start when we got there. I bought a furniture truck so I could take all my rocks and everything else and we drove back west where I was then in a state of depression for three years.

Her third effort at upsetting my equilibrium was when she refused to do anything about my social life when I was working eighty four hours a week teaching and doing a milkround. The result of this was my starting a relationship with an ex-student who kept coming back to the school after she had finished her final exams.

Actually there is a fourth significant occasion. This was when she left. Actually I told the children at the end of the day when we were preparing dinner without their mother that we could get through this and the younger two floored me by telling me they were joining her on the next day. That resulted in serious depression when they went. I never could understand why the children did not show some support for the parent who had worked his guts out to make them a better life by working two jobs.