Hey stranger,
I'm fly-in fly-out, two-on one-off, fourteen years in. The money's good and the work suits me but the loneliness is real.
For the first ten years I dealt with it the way most blokes on site deal with it — beers in the wet mess, a phone call home you don't really listen to, a series of small lies to your missus about how you were going.
What changed was a bloke in my room one swing who'd lost a mate to it. He pulled me up after dinner one night and said something I've never forgotten: “On this site we are good at being busy. We are terrible at being honest. Pick one.” I picked the other one for the first time in years.
Now I write a letter to my wife on every swing. On paper, sealed in an envelope, posted from camp. I tell her how I actually am, not how I'm meant to be. Half of them she's read. Half of them she hasn't, and that's fine. The writing is the point.
If the loneliness is wearing you down, write something to someone. It doesn't matter if you send it. The honesty has to land somewhere or it eats you.
— Ash