Turning the Page at Runaway Bay

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
As I sit here and begin to write this, there is a quiet weight in my chest that I can’t really explain but I can’t ignore either.
Today is my last shift at Woolworths Runaway Bay.
Fourteen years.
That number doesn’t even feel real when I say it out loud. It feels like something I’ve lived inside of rather than something I can measure. Fourteen years of walking through Runaway Bay Shopping Village, of knowing the corners, the smells, the sounds, the rhythm of the place like it’s stitched into me.
Most people walk through a shopping centre and forget it five minutes later.
But for me this place became something else.
It became a landscape where parts of me were formed.
I started at Target Runaway Bay.
Ten years of my life in that one place.
Ten years of learning how to show up when I didn’t feel like it. Ten years of learning how to deal with people when they were rushed, frustrated, kind, broken, impatient, sometimes all of that in one interaction.
There’s something about retail that people don’t really understand unless they’ve lived it.
It’s not just scanning items or folding clothes or standing behind a counter.
It’s standing in front of humanity every day.
And learning how to stay steady inside yourself while everything moves around you.
Some days were easy.
A lot of days weren’t.
But I kept showing up.
And over time something in me was being built without me even realising it.
My mum, Dizy, worked at Target Runaway Bay for twenty five years.
Twenty five.
So when I think about my fourteen years, I realise this didn’t even start with me.
There is a bloodline in this place.
The same floors I walked, she walked longer.
The same environment that shaped parts of me carried her story before I even understood my own.
There’s something about that that sits deep.
It’s not loud. It’s not something you talk about every day.
But it’s there.
And today, as I step out of this environment, I feel that connection.
Like I’m not just leaving a job.
I’m stepping out of something that held part of my family’s life.
After Target, I moved into TerryWhite Chemmart Runaway Bay.
A different environment, different pace, different conversations.
People aren’t just buying things in a pharmacy.
They’re carrying things.
Health issues, quiet fears, questions they don’t always say out loud.
You feel that if you’re paying attention.
Then Woolworths Runaway Bay.
The deli.
Another layer.
Another rhythm.
Another version of showing up.
And all of it, every single part of it, has been shaping me in ways I didn’t fully understand until now.
Not all of it was good.
I don’t want to pretend it was.
There were seasons here that were incredible.
Light moments. Laughing. Connection. Familiar faces. A sense of belonging in a place that most people would never even think twice about.
But there were also seasons that broke me in ways I didn’t expect.
Heavy seasons.
Quiet battles that no one around me could see.
Showing up when internally I felt like I was barely holding things together.
Retail doesn’t pause for your internal world.
The doors open.
The shift starts.
The customers come.
And you learn to carry things quietly.
You learn to function while something deeper is happening underneath.
Those were the seasons that changed me the most.
Not the easy ones.
The ones where I had to keep going anyway.
There are people I will miss.
Even if I don’t say it out loud when I walk out today.
Familiar faces.
Regulars.
The unspoken community that forms when you are in the same place for years.
People who don’t know your whole story but have seen you enough times that there is a quiet recognition.
A nod.
A moment.
A presence.
That’s not nothing.
And walking away from that carries weight.
There is something about routine that you only understand once you step outside of it.
When you’re in it, it feels repetitive.
Wake up.
Go to work.
Do the shift.
Go home.
Repeat.
But over years, that repetition builds something.
Discipline.
Consistency.
Endurance.
It teaches you how to keep moving even when you don’t feel inspired.
And that is something I carry with me now.
Even as I leave.
On Monday I step into something completely different.
A new environment.
A new pace.
A different kind of weight.
And I can feel it.
The shift.
This isn’t just another job.
This feels like a turning point.
And if I’m honest, I feel it in both directions.
There is excitement.
There is something in me that is ready for this.
But there is also that quiet pull backwards.
Not to stay.
But to acknowledge what I’m leaving.
Because this is the truth.
Parts of me grew here.
Not just professionally.
Personally.
Internally.
Emotionally.
Spiritually.
There are versions of me that were formed inside those walls.
Versions that struggled.
Versions that learned.
Versions that survived.
And as I step out, I don’t leave those versions behind.
I carry them.
But I also recognise that I’m not the same person anymore.
Growth is strange like that.
It doesn’t always feel like progress.
Sometimes it just feels like pressure.
Like being stretched.
Like being pushed into situations you didn’t choose but had to walk through anyway.
And then one day you look back and realise something in you is different.
Stronger.
Quieter.
More aware.
That’s what I feel right now.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
But different.
There is also something deeper sitting underneath all of this.
A sense that I am not just moving jobs.
I am stepping into a new chapter of my life.
A real one.
The kind you don’t fully understand until you’re already in it.
And that brings a level of honesty with it.
Because while I am excited, there are moments where it feels bittersweet.
Moments where I feel the weight of what I’m leaving.
Moments where I recognise how much of my life has been spent in this one area, this one community, this one rhythm.
Runaway Bay.
Paradise Point.
The Gold Coast.
This has been my world for a long time.
And now I’m stepping forward.
Not running.
Not escaping.
Just moving.
With awareness.
With gratitude.
With a level of honesty I probably didn’t have years ago.
If I could sum this moment up simply, it would be this.
This place helped build me.
It didn’t define me.
But it formed parts of me.
And I respect that.
Even the hard parts.
Especially the hard parts.
So today, as I walk into my last shift at Woolworths Runaway Bay, I’m not trying to make it something dramatic.
I’m just aware.
Aware that this is the end of something real.
And the beginning of something I can’t fully see yet.
And that’s enough.
Monday comes.
Gold Coast University Hospital.
A new environment.
A new weight.
A new version of showing up.
And I don’t walk into that empty.
I walk into that carrying fourteen years of consistency, pressure, growth, failure, resilience, and quiet endurance.
This is a new chapter.
And I’m ready to turn the page.

About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 1.7 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.

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