“Where are you living, like what’s your postcode?” Dad asked on the other end of the phone.

“I have a car!” I laughed nervously.

“So you’re homeless?” he responded.

“No. I am not homeless.” I then repeated a phrase I’d recently heard from a fellow writer: “I am houseless.“

Two weeks after my brother died, I scrolled through my camera roll selecting appropriate photos for a dog sitting app called ‘Trusted Housesitters’. My cat wasn’t the most photogenic animal but luckily I’d managed a few shoots with friends’ dogs & randoms I ran into on the street. Looking back, I don’t know what drove me to it. Nobody I knew was dog sitting. Nobody suggested it. But I do know that when I was eleven I had to take a few days off school after my dog died because the thought of him not returning felt heavier than my backpack. And since then, I’d never had another dog. Now, my brother had died and something was pulling me towards animals.

I never thought a year later I’d be living in Australia “houseless” moving from dog to dog with a three wheeled suitcase in one hand and a broken handled case in the other, alongside a boot filled with Coles shopping bags and secondhand books. My only furniture: a yoga mat, coffee press and a blue mug. I explore different family homes, meeting and minding a dog at each one; some big, some small, some hyper, some chill. In one way, it’s as if I’m living someone else’s life. Sitting on their favorite chair, admiring the photographs, cooking with their utensils and walking their dog as if they’re my own. Each home is just a stopover point in my life till I figure out the final destination. And I’m starting to wonder if there ever will be a final destination – if I’ll ever want to reach one.

While minding dogs, I work part-time in a secondhand bookshop; pricing and shelving books that are, like me, in fragile condition wandering from house to house, unsure of their permanent base. I get a lot of customers plaguing me with questions about what I’m doing with my life. After explaining my living situation to one, he said: “So you’re a gypsy?” Rather than being offended, I replied with pride: “Yeah. Maybe I am.” But I’ve had little glimpses resembling that beautiful feeling of being at home throughout my dog sitting adventures: I’ve joined Sunday roasts with families, held staring contests with kids, sipped tea while discussing wedding venues, and one of the dog owners even joined my book club. The families involved in the dog sits have taken up a big chunk of my social calendar, but as a female solo traveler this has actually been a lovely way to connect with more people.

One evening after joining a family’s Sunday roast, we all lounged around the couch in a food coma. They threw a documentary on the television, commentating throughout. A sick feeling anchored in my stomach, catching me off guard; one that soon became a pain in my heart and a longing for a cry, remembering my family home in Ireland. Yes I have learnt to carry a home for myself as I’ve traveled throughout the last year, but there’s still a little ache in my heart that never goes away; somedays it’s quiet, others it’s screaming. It’s a longing for the company I shared since I came into this world; the person who has laughed along to the same tv shows, hummed the familiar tunes, repeated the stories and knows what I mean from a glance because we both just get each other. Got each other. My brother.

I read that grief is love with no place to go. Maybe this dog sitting started as a way to share all of that love. To calm that ache. Maybe I’m moving around restlessly because I’m searching for a home that I’ll never find. Or resisting the possibility of a new one because the home I’ve grown up in has been taken. I’m writing this blog post at the airport while awaiting my flight to Bali, unsure of my plans for the future. Where I’ll go next, who I’ll meet, what I’ll do, am I making the right decision, am I making the wrong one, should I settle down or should I go somewhere new. All of it – a big ball of tangled up uncertainty – completely unnerves me and shakes me off my feet, yet it helps me continue forward and feel alive and free.