There are some questions people ask when they find out you've moved interstate.
"Do you miss Sydney?"
"Do you like living on the Mornington Peninsula better?"
For a long time, I didn't quite know how to answer, because the honest answer is yes. To both.
I think we often assume moving means choosing. That loving one place somehow requires you to stop loving another. That home is a destination you eventually arrive at, rather than something that quietly unfolds over time.
But that's never been my experience.
I still miss jacaranda trees. I still miss Sydney Harbour catching the afternoon light. I still miss streets that hold decades of memories, where every corner reminds you of a different version of your life.
But now I also look forward to Sunday mornings at the farmers' market, long lunches discovering another local winery, and friends who know this chapter of our lives instead of the one before.
The Mornington Peninsula has quietly become part of me too. Not instead of Sydney. Alongside it.
Perhaps that's what surprised me most about moving. I expected to spend years comparing the two places, wondering which one felt more like home. Instead, I slowly realised they mean different things to me.
Neither is better. They're simply different expressions of the same country.
Sydney gave me decades of memories. The Peninsula is still giving me new ones.
Over the years, I've found myself paying close attention to Australian homes. Looking at the way we live, the places we gather and the landscapes that shape us. The homes I've loved most have all had one thing in common.
They've had a sense of place.
Not because they followed a particular style, but because they couldn't have existed anywhere else.
A terrace in Sydney doesn't need to pretend it's a Byron Bay farmhouse. A coastal home on the Peninsula doesn't need to imitate an inner city apartment.
The best homes belong exactly where they are. They're shaped by the landscape outside their windows and the lives unfolding within them.
That's why I've become less interested in homes that feel styled and more interested in homes that feel lived in. Homes with books collected over decades. A table that's seen birthdays, homework and Sunday lunches or sandy shoes at the door. Pieces collected over time because they meant something, not because they matched.
Homes that tell you where they are without having to say a word.
Looking back, I realise moving didn't change what I loved about home. It simply expanded my understanding of it.
Home isn't where you stop loving the last place. It's where you quietly start belonging to the next one.
Both things can be true.
You can miss jacaranda trees and look forward to the farmers' market. You can still love Sydney Harbour and know exactly which winery you'll suggest for lunch this weekend. You can carry one place with you while another slowly becomes part of who you are.
Perhaps that's the lovely thing about belonging.
It isn't limited to one place.
If you're lucky, your heart simply makes room for another.
