Being Back is Meh in Days of My Destiny
- June 24, 2014, 9:43 p.m.
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- Public
So Chile came and went in the blink of an eye. Being back is.... strange.
I want to still be in that moment, I want to reflect and reminisce and indulge in my own mind regarding the trip... but somehow my mind isn't allowing that.
Things feel dull, though I don't want to dwell on that, rather I am "getting on with it" (oh that old Australian saying has evolved in meaning for me the last couple of years...).
L feels the way I do, too.
We want to still be walking the streets of Chile. We want to be lost and unsure of ourselves, figuring things out step by step. We don't want Automatic.
We weren't even away long enough to come back and be gobsmacked at the size of our home, the way we did last time, and the way we expected to this time.
I want to see my cousins, my uncles and aunties, my blood relatives who actually care. I want to bump into anybody who CARES.
Life here goes about at a surface level. And when you're here, it just happens and you just go about this life without even really realising this fact. But then, post-travel (and particularly post-Chile), life here does seem dull. It's something you can't even put into words. It's like... you realise that there is so much MORE to life that nobody is really interested in. And it's all to do with the SOUL.
The first time I travelled to Chile, I came back with this sadness and grief in my entire being. I went back to school and hated everyone and everything about being back. And it took MONTHS upon MONTHS for that to slowly fade away on its own. Then the second time I travelled to Chile, I didn't really feel much about leaving the place as I was in a whirlwind mindframe and also, Chile was part of a round-the-world trip, so that by the time we returned home, Chile was just one of many parts of my journey. Also at the time, there was my whole relationship to work on. I came back with a resolution to work tirelessly until things were the way they used to be. So that was my whole focus at the time. This time.... we went to Chile for two weeks and nowhere else. And I have a little bit of that Thing I had when I returned the first time. I feel sad. I feel like I don't want to do any of this. I don't care to see anybody.
M got a wonderful welcome back. As soon as she walked into the classroom, everybody yelled out her name excitedly, it was so beautiful. The teacher told me that while we were gone, they had to chop down this tree that was a bit of a hazard. Before it was cut down, the children all dedicated that tree to M and wrote messages on it like, "Come back M" and "We miss you M". When the teacher told me this, I couldn't help my eyes filling with tears. These children... they still have that freshness of Life about them. They still aren't afraid to show their emotions as they really are - raw and honest.
We went to the post office to collect our mail after dropping the girls off at school and the ladies at the post office acted as though we've never gone anywhere, even though they outright KNEW we'd been away (they handed us the passport application forms and were both there when we asked them to hold our mail for a couple of weeks). And that sucked. Especially after the warm welcome M got. They didn't even at least ask how the trip went. And in a town as small as this one.... it's hard to imagine them FORGETTING we went anywhere.
And that example right there is what I am talking about. That is the example that tells in some concise way the things I am sad about, that I am unable to put into words.
When we were driving back to this place, L and I spoke a lot about our trip and our family and Life. I love that man and I love that we share the same feelings and perspectives and thoughts on just about everything. He outright told me he had the blues, bad. He didn't want to come back here. We agreed that perhaps if our Home was in the house we own, then coming back wouldn't be so bad. But it sucks having to come back to THIS Home, to THESE four walls, so faraway from everyone and everything that could still at least in part resemble what our journey to Chile was. If we were where my family is, then we could at least reminisce together. But here... sigh.
Yesterday L said to me that actually being back here finally, to him, didn't feel so bad. To me it's like... I just don't really want to think about anything. I don't want to think about being back. I just want to go through the motions and achieve our goals so that we can get back to Chile sooner. We have both reiterated that if things get so bad for either of us, then we're out of here. For what it's worth, I'm sure I can still do the next 3 years here. Just not as enthusiastically as before. Then again, perhaps my current feelings will pass over time. If they don't though, then we know it's time to seriously start looking for work closer to home.
Deleted user ⋅ June 27, 2014
:(