Why does changing suburbs feel like such a big deal in Canberra?

Not a new job, school, city or country - we've been through some if not all of those in recent years, and lived to tell the tale.

No, this feels somehow ... bigger. It's a small-scale move that will send ripples into the consciousness, causing a possible (albeit slight) personality change. It's meaningful.

We're contemplating moving to a new suburb in an entirely different part of Canberra. Why does this seem so significant? I have packed up my life and moved cities at least three times in my life - twice to a different country, and by myself.

I have started new jobs, packed and unpacked boxes in strange new places, and steeled myself, on behalf of my kids, for the fraught, special first days at a new school.

But nothing feels quite as momentous, in such a strangely small and stealthy way, as moving to a new part of a city you'd like to think you know pretty well.

True Canberrans will nod sagely at my admittedly overwrought description of this kind of change. Newcomers, meanwhile, can be forgiven for being bemused.

And sometimes, I have cause to envy such newcomers to Canberra. Not, as you may think, because I wish that I, too, could be sampling our fair city's delights with new, Bambi-like eyes and uncovering our secrets like perfectly wrapped presents, sure to delight in their contents.

No, it's because I wish I could pick a place to live without any preconceived notion or baggage as to what each suburb, town centre or side of the lake means. To be ruled by pragmatism, and first impressions.

It's hard to put this so-called "meaning" into words, because so much of it comes, inevitably, from childhood associations, school experiences, your relationship with public transport, where you learned to drive. Where the family had picnics, where you learnt to swim, where you hung out as a teenager, which cinema screened your defining movies.

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Look, one of my colleagues - another lifelong Canberran - is a northsider through and through. He maintains that, in the recent lead-up to his purchasing an Inner North apartment, he wouldn't even consider for a single second the possibility of moving south. And nor would I even begin to question such pig-headedness. It's the Canberra Way.

I do, however, permit myself an indulgent chuckle at my various johnny-come-lately friends who moved here a decade or more ago, and have staked their claim on their particular patch, declaring they will never live anywhere else. They will not "cross the lake". I appreciate their adoption of the Canberra Way.

I have lived in the Inner North - O'Connor, Dickson and, for the longest time, Watson - for most of my adult life. But as we wander, wide-eyed, into the world of prospective home-ownership, I have found myself, for a solid three years, pining to return to the Inner South.

It's where I grew up, where my parents still live, and close to the school I have chosen to enrol my kids. My life is largely in the south, and yet I am mired in the north. So now, we're heading south - further than what I'm used to, but closer to the streets of my childhood.

It's more insidiously unsettling than the time I moved to Melbourne. It taps more deeply into my psyche than the shifts that come with the territory of young adulthood, wanderlust, career opportunities and general curiosity about the world.

It challenges my inner landscape which, in many ways, mirrors the layout of the city of my soul.

I am aware of how silly this sounds. I had cause, just this week, of conversing with someone currently residing in Ukraine, of all places. I asked her what it was like, living in a war zone, although I somehow knew what the answer would be. It's ... boring. It's everyday life, punctuated by missile strikes, power outages, and restricted air spaces, making travel difficult. Monumental inconveniences that are unimaginable to us here, and yet so shrug-worthy over there.

It was a useful lesson, but one that somehow reassured me that small things matter. I'm looking forward to taking in the different streetscapes, tree shapes, local shops, walking tracks, bus stops. I'm grateful even to be able to contemplate it, moving from one nice Canberra suburb (they're all nice) to another. And I'm grateful that I have such a defined connection to this place, one that creaks and sways if I move too far, or too quickly. But I know it will settle, and I will too.

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