Could you tell me a time you experienced setbacks?

I consider myself a very lucky person. I have a supportive family, I have loving friends back in Australia that date back to high school and even primary school. My work friends turned into friends I will keep for a lifetime. I also moved to London in January and have made friends here that I don’t think I would’ve survived without. I now have two lives on opposite sides of the world that I love in equal proportions. How good?! 

One thing that drives me crazy though is when people tell me how easy I have it. To me, there is a big difference between things just falling into your lap and working your ass off for the things you want. 

My first teaching job after doing a ‘working gap year’ was a dream come true. I loved the girls I was working with and really thought I had found the place I wanted to teach for the rest of my life. I had been there for two years, and at the end of the second year myself and 5 other girls were required to interview for new contracts in 2017. Nobody was stressed; there were 5 girls going for 5 contracts… What’s there to be stressed about? Turns out a lot: I was the ONLY girl out of those five who didn’t get her contract renewed.

I was utterly humiliated. I took the rest of the week off - mainly because I hadn’t updated my Resume for two years but also to have a bit of a sulk about how shit life was. It took me about 12 hours of crying, and 3 packets of Tim Tams to finally pull my socks up and get cracking on what needed to be done. For three days I did nothing but sit in front of my laptop, sending and editing CV after CV to what felt like every primary school in Melbourne. 

At first the replies were slow, so I continued to rejig my entire CV again and again until I started getting some replies. It was quite satisfying going into the Principal asking for time off for interviews for a few weeks (it must’ve been wildly inconvenient) but at the same time, none of these schools felt like places I wanted to work. My 12th, yes 12th, interview was at a school in Melbourne that was held in very high regard. 3/4 of the way through, the principal asked me what footy team I went for. I said St Kilda and knew that if I hadn’t screwed myself up somehow before that, that would’ve been the nail in the coffin. I said thank you and headed back to school to teach for the rest of the day. By the time I parked the car again I had received a call saying I had got the job! The first person I shared my news with told me “you’re so lucky Mel. Everything always works out for you!” I believed it then, and believe it now. I’m a lucky gal. But in hindsight, I got the job because I worked my ass off to get the job. Days of hard work lead me to this outcome. 

It is still, to this day, the biggest setback and the biggest learning curve I’ve had in my life. Now that I look back at it, it was quite arrogant of me to think that I had anything ‘in the bag’. Nothing is certain. And there have been so many moments in my life where this setback floats into my brain  again and I think to myself ‘just because you think you deserve it, doesn’t mean you will get it’. 

My move to London has been filled with setbacks, too. But everyone only sees the good stuff. And of course you only want to share the good stuff, too! 

“You make friends so easy, Mel. It was harder for me.” Mmm no. I knew one person when I moved over here and put myself in uncomfortable position after uncomfortable position to make friends. It was very hard. I was nervous every time, but did it anyway. 

“You were so lucky to snag accommodation in London.” Yes I was, I was also homeless for 3 weeks in April and lived with a girl who didn’t acknowledge my presence for 3 weeks before that. 

The list goes on.. I traveled far and wide for my visa one Thursday evening, I fell off a scooter in my first few weeks and haven’t had feeling in my knee since and let’s not even discuss how expensive it is to actually survive in London. It’s all good for the storyline. 

I don’t need a pat on the back, or acknowledgment of the things that I’ve overcome; I’m past that. But what I have learnt in my 30 years is that the comeback is always stronger than the setback. I know that life always has a way of working itself out, I truly believe that; everything will always work itself out. But that doesn’t mean that everything is falling in my lap. I have worked for, and deserve, everything that comes my way. And I’m bloody proud of myself for it.