Monday, October 28, 2013

Home

It's been so strange. Not being here nor there. For the first time since I started travelling independently, I have no "going back" to go back to. I talked about it with my mom, and she said she felt the same way. Like, it kept hitting her that this was it- York was her home now, and had she made the biggest mistake in coming here? In fact, she said, England didn't really feel like home at all until almost a year later when she and my dad made a return trip to Canada to visit me, among other things.  In returning to the place where she had thought would feel most like home, it hit her that it didn't feel like home at all. She had no house there, no work, no belongings. It was, she said, a great place to visit, and see all the friends she had made over the past 8 years, but it didn't feel like home. York did. And she was glad to eventually go back there, after a couple of weeks.

I can feel that way a bit. Again, I have no physical abode to return to there, and only my poor sister Dani is still stuck there out of my family members. I have the majority of my friends who live there, but I have started to make a few friends here too. I have a job of sorts here, and I love the food and lifestyle much more. People are more reserved here, so I like shocking them with my openness. I feel fresh and bright and, strangely, a bit American. Bold. I can't even begin to blend in as soon as I open my mouth, so I've reached the point where it's just like Alright already, I'm a foreigner yes, get over it and sell me my darn kale.

It's a different life than what I was leading in Alberta. But it's not worse. I quite think that I will enjoy my few months here. I'll keep you updated.

2 comments:

  1. Life's too short not to be bold. And what marvelous treasures (and perils) are born of it.

    I know precisely how you feel...this is just how I felt in July when I came back to my folks' house. There wasn't a single scrap of evidence that I'd ever lived there, save for a few cardboard boxes in the shed. My room didn't even smell like me anymore. New pets, new tile in the kitchen, new grass in the backyard, new lampshades, new portraits on the walls, new this, new that. All unfamiliar. Now we know what they mean when they say we can't go home again. Nowhere to go but into the wild...

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    1. Fantastic. "Now we know what they mean when they say we can't go home again." It's thrilling and terrifying.

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