Square pegs?
So it's twenty past ten on a Saturday morning, and normally, I'd just be getting on the computer, having done some washing, some cleaning, showered, dressed etc etc*. However, I have been up and semi-conscious for about four hours, have travelled half the length of the North Island, and am currently sitting at the computer in my parents place typing this. I'm still not fully awake. I wasn't even mostly awake until half way through the flight, which is to say, around nine.
My sister should be home shortly, and then we're going up to the dressmaker's to get me fitted. I should probably dig out the shoes that I'm going to wear on the day.
But the house, it seems so small. It looks really good, and I like what they've done with it, but at the same time it feels like I'm fitting back in somewhere I've outgrown. I feel like I can touch the ceilings if I stand on my toes. I can't (I tried), but it feels so much closer than I used to.
The parents wondered, on the way here, if I was sorry that they're selling the place. I suppose I am, in a way, sorry to see easy access to memories go, and sorry that I'm not going to be able to go and visit them and have that instant familiarity. But apart from the river, it was never really the places in Hamilton that I missed, it was always the people. And by next year, my sister is going to be the only family member I have left here, and she won't be at this house. I'd always assumed that they'd downsize when we all left home, anyhow. They're upsizing, but the concept is the same.
I love my family, and I loved growing up here. And it's not that I necessarily feel that I have to limit who I am by coming back - it's just that at the same time, I do, and things I take for granted in Wellington are not things that I take for granted here. Even something as simple as firefox! I must download it for them before I leave!
Time to go make another cup of tea or coffee and go and sit outside in the sun.
*time is approximate, subject to variation of up to an hour on each side
My sister should be home shortly, and then we're going up to the dressmaker's to get me fitted. I should probably dig out the shoes that I'm going to wear on the day.
But the house, it seems so small. It looks really good, and I like what they've done with it, but at the same time it feels like I'm fitting back in somewhere I've outgrown. I feel like I can touch the ceilings if I stand on my toes. I can't (I tried), but it feels so much closer than I used to.
The parents wondered, on the way here, if I was sorry that they're selling the place. I suppose I am, in a way, sorry to see easy access to memories go, and sorry that I'm not going to be able to go and visit them and have that instant familiarity. But apart from the river, it was never really the places in Hamilton that I missed, it was always the people. And by next year, my sister is going to be the only family member I have left here, and she won't be at this house. I'd always assumed that they'd downsize when we all left home, anyhow. They're upsizing, but the concept is the same.
I love my family, and I loved growing up here. And it's not that I necessarily feel that I have to limit who I am by coming back - it's just that at the same time, I do, and things I take for granted in Wellington are not things that I take for granted here. Even something as simple as firefox! I must download it for them before I leave!
Time to go make another cup of tea or coffee and go and sit outside in the sun.
*time is approximate, subject to variation of up to an hour on each side