Grace
32 years
married
no children
speech pathologist & photographer
I’m somebody who loves to take time on things. I love creating things, like seeing things and thinking, "yeah, I can do that". Then going out and doing it. I love the sky and I love being outside and sitting. I love finding little things that other people don’t know about. I love finding out odd facts about things.
Not a true true Tasmanian
I’m from Tasmania. I’m not true true Tasmanian in that my Mum and Dad aren’t from here. I spent most of my life growing up here. Not that far from the city, but on an acre and a half of land, so almost hobby farm size with a lot of animals.
I had to travel interstate to study when I was in my 20s. So I went to Melbourne and loved it there. I thought I was going to stay, but I got drawn back home again and I really love it here in Tassie. Yeah, that’s kind of where I’m from.
An interesting place
I’m in a really interesting place. I’ve cut back my hours, which is something that I’ve been talking about doing for probably the last ten years.
Certainly when I came out of uni, trained as a Speech Pathologist, I never went into work thinking that I wanted to do this full-time. Work for me has always been something that I want to do for the enjoyment of it. I don’t ever want to be in a place where my whole life revolves around work. I really like the idea of working and enjoying it and earning the money that I need to be able to enjoy life.
So I finally dropped back to three days per week and I'm finding that I have the space and time to make things for people. Instead of buying people presents, I’m making them. I actually having time to potter around the house and do little things in the garden and really have got back to enjoying my job as a Speech Pathologist and exploring my photography in a much more intense way than I have previously.
Falling into things
I guess often the way that things seem to fall for me is that I tend to, not exactly fall into things, but not exactly float into things either. I’m one of those people who doesn’t have five year plans. I like to do what it is that I’m doing and then something will come along or somebody will suggest something and all of a sudden I’m doing something slightly different.
Change is something that I find challenging, so I’ve kind of floated and fallen my way and explored my way in many ways, encouraged by people around me.
Balance, enjoyment & really good friends
I would very much like to explore the new space in my life, having time to do things that I enjoy. I would like to see myself going into a place where I’ve got even more balance. Where I’m getting great enjoyment out of a whole range of things and really good friends.
What do you like and what would you change about yourself?
I like that I quite often see things from a different point of view. I like that I’m thoughtful in a lot of things that I do. I always try to take care and think of what is going to bring enjoyment to other people. I like that I can see the little things and take pleasure from that.
I think my anxiety around change is probably something that I would like to change about myself. I find, as I said before, that I find change or sudden change is something that is very challenging. I would love to just flow with things a little more. That’s probably it.
To finish with, describe yourself in just one sentence
I don’t even know how to do that. I’m me