Opportunity

My hometown is Castlemaine. Not "Carstle-maine". It's "Cassle-maine" thank you very much. For some, it's a home to hipster Melbourne-bred tree-changers, a thriving arts scene, or Broadsheet-featured Johnny Baker - the destination patisserie. For locals, it might be Saffs, Lot 19, or The Little IGA. Definitely the generational trauma of the death of the Stonemans cat. For me, a girl who lived on a hippy hobby farm hidden between sheep paddocks out past Newstead, Castlemaine became my spiritual hometown. My Newstead Primary School friends headed west to the private school in Maryborough, and I went east in a quest for new friends and a public education. 

Now when the country calls me home, Castlemaine still feels just the same. It doesn't matter that I don't recognise anyone strolling along Mostyn Street's goldrush-era shopfronts. Or that the Country Target my mum fainted in after a blood donation is now a "K-Hub", it's still all so warmly familiar. Its old-timey cannons in Victory Park (obligatory in every regional country town for some reason). The grand steps of the market building. Cosy homewares displayed in the windows of Taylor's. Two competing fish and chip shops barely three shopfronts apart. The cool shade of the enormous Indian bean tree in the Botanic Gardens. 

So much has just carried on for all these years. 

One that has carried on for longer than all of us is the Theatre Royal. Standing grandly on Hargraves Street since 1854, the theatre has been a stately and solid feature of Castlemaine's cultural scene. It is the oldest continually-operating theatre on the Australian mainland, a source of great pride to the town. 

Aside from being a noble home to arthouse theatre and live gigs, the Theatre Royal was the venue for our first movies (The Lion King), first dates (Ned Kelly) and first kisses (see also Ned Kelly. My date: 1 star, Orlando Bloom: 5 stars). It's where my mum cried watching Babe when the duck's girlfriend got served up for Christmas dinner. It's where my dad took me to an Australian film about a country girl leaving her farm and moving to the city, special because it's really my only memory of doing something just the two of us. 

I saw one of my very favourite films - the cinematic classic (and personal inspiration) - Legally Blonde. It randomly stopped about 10 minutes in, while the person in the projector room scrambled to get Elle back onscreen. Our school treated our Year 12 cohort to a screening of the film adaptation of the Italian novel I'm Not Scared by Nicolo Ammaniti. My friend and fellow Lord of the Rings nerd, Annie and I went to a double feature of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Luckily we were seated on comfy couches on the ground floor, below the usual creaky and stiff red leather theatre seats on the balcony.

Most notably, the Theatre Royal was home to our formals. My first one was as a starry-eyed Year 9 attending the senior formal with a Year 10 boyfriend, in a blink-and-you-missed-it terrible high school romance. I borrowed my bestie's sister's dress, and still remember feeling self-conscious as my hips had made a sudden appearance and I hadn't quite grown into them yet. I didn't even know how to dance and sat awkwardly for much of the night. (Note to the reader - this was before the introduction of a very well-played CD of The Killers' 2004 masterpiece Hot Fuss, the album that taught me to dance). My boyfriend pulled me up to dance to Sexyback by Justin Timberlake, which in my defence has a pretty weird rhythm, and I embarrassed myself enough to be encouraged to sit back down for the next one. 

Our high school years flitted by and before I was really ready for it, 2006 brought us our last year at Castlemaine Secondary College, and with it, our final formal at the Theatre Royal. There were no dates for this one, just the easy companionship of best friends as we curled hair, layered mascara, and spritzed ourselves with lashings of Paris Hilton's signature perfume. As we arrived at the theatre it felt significant. There was a palpable shift in the way we saw ourselves, as we began to wonder what was next. This girl gang, nearly young women, was shaking off high school politics, ready to step out into the possibilities of our own lives. 

Out on the dancefloor, the class of 2006 was serenaded by a Year 11 kid, whose name I'm quite sure was Dave, singing Pete Murray's Opportunity. 

Hold on now, your exit's here

It's waiting just for you

Don't pause too long

It's fading now

It's ending all too soon, you'll see

For my entire life, I have always been so acutely aware of the sensation of time slipping between my fingers. It is a blessing, to deeply appreciate all the beautiful moments, but has also given me a life saturated by nostalgia, tinged with a sadness for those moments as they pass into memory. It has given me a fear of change and an unwillingness to step out of how good things are, even if better things are waiting ahead for me. 

I felt the poignancy of this moment so deeply, aware of all of the opportunities that lay out ahead of us. Moving out of home and away to the city, grown up jobs, university, and hopefully, maybe, love. We didn't know what we were about to begin, but we knew that we had each other. 

So how moved I was, nearly 20 years later to find myself in the Theatre Royal as Pete Murray himself played Opportunity onstage, just him and his guitar. This time with Al, while our toddler slept soundly in Mum's little mud-brick house. 

Time was circular, and here I was, on the same dancefloor, under the same paint-peeling ceiling, hearing those lyrics again. 

Had it been everything we had imagined? 

Dinners and trips and nights out. A college year surviving on porridge and mountain bread, but simultaneously filled with laughter and creativity. Learning and study (and wild university parties). New friendships forged, some just for a season, and some for the long haul. Shitty jobs and worse bosses. Grief. Tiny apartments and countless moving days. New furry family members. Love, both passionate and comfortable; destined and unexpected. Engagements. Weddings. And now for some of us, children of our own.

The years have passed, but each one full. What lives we have lived. 

As Pete sang, it felt like I'd done all of it and none of it. Like it was all about to begin again. New challenges and changes. Books to read. Words to write. Places to find and beautiful people we haven't met yet.

So much life still to live. 

So much joy unseen. 

It's waiting for us.