A New Chapter: First Day in Melbourne — Three Cities, One Family

A New Chapter Begins

Today is my first day at a new job in Melbourne.

It is a strange feeling — exciting and unsettling in equal measure, in the way that only truly meaningful changes can be. I am sitting here in this new city, in a new office, and I cannot quite shake the awareness that twenty years of life in Perth are now, in a very real sense, behind me.

Twenty Years in Perth

We arrived in Perth — my wife and I — with very little. Just the two of us, a modest amount of savings, the kind of courage that youth lends you without asking permission, and a willingness to build something from scratch in a country we barely knew.

Twenty years is a long time. Long enough to put down roots so deep you barely notice them until the day you have to leave. Perth gave us friendships that feel like family. It gave us a community, a rhythm of life, a sense of belonging. It gave us Harry. It gave us memories stacked so high I cannot see the top of the pile.

Leaving it — even for something good — carries a weight I did not fully anticipate.

Three Cities, One Map

Right now, our family of three is scattered across the globe in a way that looks almost comical on a map.

My wife is in Nanjing, visiting her family — the kind of trip that becomes more precious and more urgent with each passing year, as parents grow older and the distance between visits feels shorter than it used to.

My son Harry is in Melbourne, in his first year at the University of Melbourne, building the kind of independent life that fills a parent with simultaneous pride and wistfulness.

And I am here, also in Melbourne — just arrived, starting fresh, navigating a new city on my first day of work.

Three cities. Three time zones. One family.

The Echo of Twenty Years Ago

There is something quietly symmetrical about this moment that I keep returning to.

Twenty years ago, it was just me and my wife — two people stepping off a plane into an unfamiliar Australian city, with uncertain futures and no road map. Perth was the unknown. Everything had to be built: a home, a career, a community, a life.

Here I am again. Fifties. New city. New job. That particular cocktail of anxiety and possibility.

The circumstances are different this time. We are not starting from nothing — we carry twenty years of experience, a stable financial foundation, and the hard-won wisdom that comes from having already done something like this once before. The fear is quieter. The faith is steadier.

But the feeling? The feeling of standing at the edge of something new, not quite sure what comes next? That part is exactly the same.

According to Plan

I am not someone who believes the big moments of life are random. Looking back across the last two decades, I can see a shape to things — a logic that was not always visible while I was living it, but becomes clearer in retrospect.

This move feels like part of that same pattern. It feels a little rushed, if I am honest. I would have preferred more time, more gradual transition. But then, the things that matter rarely arrive on a schedule that suits our preferences.

Harry starting at Melbourne University. A new position opening here. The timing aligning in a way that made this the obvious next step. Short of planning it ourselves, we could not have arranged it more deliberately. And yet, we did not plan it. It simply unfolded.

That is, for lack of a better word, what I mean when I say it feels like God’s plan. Not that every step is comfortable — but that the steps are, somehow, going somewhere.

Short Separation, Long Reunion

The present arrangement — wife in Nanjing, son in Melbourne, me also in Melbourne but only just arrived — is temporary. It always is. The separations that feel the largest are often the ones that precede the most settled chapters.

A few more months, and my wife will be here. Harry and I are already in the same city. We will find our footing in Melbourne. We will discover new coffee shops and walking routes and weekend rhythms. We will build, again, something worth staying for.

And somewhere on the other side of another five to seven years of work, there is a retirement waiting — unhurried, surrounded by people we love, in a life built carefully enough to be enjoyed fully.

The short separation is not the story. It is the setup.

What Comes Next

I am not entirely sure what Melbourne will become for us yet. Every city reveals itself slowly. Perth took years before it stopped feeling like a place we lived and started feeling like home.

What I do know:

• Harry is here. That alone changes everything.
• The financial pressure that defined our early Perth years is gone. This chapter can be about living well, not just building.
• The work ahead is meaningful, and I have the experience now to do it well.
• The retirement we have talked about for years is no longer abstract — it has a shape and a timeline.

The sadness about leaving Perth is real. I will not pretend otherwise. But sadness about leaving a good place is just gratitude wearing a different face.

To Perth, With Gratitude

Twenty years of friendship. Of belonging. Of a city that accepted us, included us, and gave us the best years of raising our son.

We will be back to visit. The friendships we built there are not the kind that geography can dissolve. But for now, thank you, Perth — for everything you were for us.

And hello, Melbourne. Let’s see what you’ve got.

Connect

• GitHub: guidebee/solana-trading-system
• LinkedIn: James Shen

This is post #33 in the Solana Trading System development series — though today’s post has nothing to do with trading systems, and everything to do with what makes any of it worth building. First day in Melbourne. New chapter. Grateful for all of it.