Audience Participation 4: How do you feel about coming home?
Short answer: Confused
Long answer: Confused, and here's why...
I was ready to come home, although still annoyed about being forced to leave by my shortened UK Visa. I do wish the UK wasn't so far away. But I was looking forward very much to being with Mr Arcadia again... This was our longest separation in nearly 20 years of marriage. There are also a few other people who I was looking forward to seeing again.
I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, and I was looking forward to my own pillow (which I bought about a month before I left, and its the nicest pillow I've ever had - if you have neck and shoulder problems, these details become very important).
I was looking forward to lying on my big sofa with Mr Arcadia.
I was looking forward to hanging with other loved ones.
I was looking forward to being able to get a good coffee at more than 2 coffee emporia.
I was looking forward to eating lamb again.
I was looking forward to having all my craft stuff on hand again - not just knitting stuff.
I was looking forward to coming back to summer (ha! this is Melbourne, after all...)
All of that has been nice.
But home isn't as homey as I expected.
As the plane descended through the clouds, I didn't get a lift of my heart at seeing Australian soil - I usually do, so this surprised me. In the taxi coming home from the airport, it was all familiar - so much so it was a bit humdrum. I guess I was glad to see it, but it hadn't changed much and I kind of knew it was all still here.
For some of the past couple of years, I was forced by health crises to be at home a lot. So while I enjoy the view from my sofa and my house is decorated in a fashion that I find attractive, and there are lots of useful amenities nearby, I am haunted by shadows of less happy days. Some of that unhappiness and helplessness seems to have seeped into the fabric of the building - or just lodged in a vulnerable part of my brain.
And i think I have mentioned the noise a few times too. I need my apartment, about two blocks back off the main road, and with a bigger garden. So i don't want much - just the impossible!
I guess, for me, this bit of Melbourne is about my past, but I don't necessarily see it holding my future. But I don't actually know what the future should be, or what I want to do with it. Although, judging by my entry about Clothes, that will be part of it!
And I'm not at all sure this isn't just the necessary discomfort of re-entry. I've had the horrible snotty sinusitis-head-cold since my return. It definitely affects your perspective. Perhaps it will all just go away once I've been back longer than a week...
But I felt less like a stranger in Bury St Edmunds than I do in my own life, and I don't know why.
Fish out of water much?
Long answer: Confused, and here's why...
I was ready to come home, although still annoyed about being forced to leave by my shortened UK Visa. I do wish the UK wasn't so far away. But I was looking forward very much to being with Mr Arcadia again... This was our longest separation in nearly 20 years of marriage. There are also a few other people who I was looking forward to seeing again.
I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, and I was looking forward to my own pillow (which I bought about a month before I left, and its the nicest pillow I've ever had - if you have neck and shoulder problems, these details become very important).
I was looking forward to lying on my big sofa with Mr Arcadia.
I was looking forward to hanging with other loved ones.
I was looking forward to being able to get a good coffee at more than 2 coffee emporia.
I was looking forward to eating lamb again.
I was looking forward to having all my craft stuff on hand again - not just knitting stuff.
I was looking forward to coming back to summer (ha! this is Melbourne, after all...)
All of that has been nice.
But home isn't as homey as I expected.
As the plane descended through the clouds, I didn't get a lift of my heart at seeing Australian soil - I usually do, so this surprised me. In the taxi coming home from the airport, it was all familiar - so much so it was a bit humdrum. I guess I was glad to see it, but it hadn't changed much and I kind of knew it was all still here.
For some of the past couple of years, I was forced by health crises to be at home a lot. So while I enjoy the view from my sofa and my house is decorated in a fashion that I find attractive, and there are lots of useful amenities nearby, I am haunted by shadows of less happy days. Some of that unhappiness and helplessness seems to have seeped into the fabric of the building - or just lodged in a vulnerable part of my brain.
And i think I have mentioned the noise a few times too. I need my apartment, about two blocks back off the main road, and with a bigger garden. So i don't want much - just the impossible!
I guess, for me, this bit of Melbourne is about my past, but I don't necessarily see it holding my future. But I don't actually know what the future should be, or what I want to do with it. Although, judging by my entry about Clothes, that will be part of it!
And I'm not at all sure this isn't just the necessary discomfort of re-entry. I've had the horrible snotty sinusitis-head-cold since my return. It definitely affects your perspective. Perhaps it will all just go away once I've been back longer than a week...
But I felt less like a stranger in Bury St Edmunds than I do in my own life, and I don't know why.
Fish out of water much?