je suis Esquimaude

Moved back into my old flat yesterday. It has given me the freedom I've craved since moving back with my parents but at the same time, it takes me back to when DK first left for the UK. My mind is filled with the great sadness and pain I had felt back then even though I know that we are still together.

Waking up alone in the flat, going to all the shops we used to go to, having my Sunday ritual hash browns for breakfast takes me right back to all those years ago where I used to spend hours crying and not knowing where my life was going. Needless to say, I am not sure how healthy this is. Maybe I just need time to settle in again.

Another question is why I feel so sad to be back home. I am no longer cold, I have friends to talk to and to see yet I don't feel right. I'm finding my life back here extremely stressful and as a consequence I am not looking after myself very well. I have gone back to my routine of getting drunk in order to sleep at night, looking around to see if I could perhaps bring someone home so that I don't wake up alone.

Maybe I need to see a shrink.......

Why is it that you always end up getting text messages from people you don't really want to hear from but never hear back from the one person you actually want to hear from?????
How annoying!

Back in Sydney for three months. A long story as to why I'm home for so long away from DK. I'm staying positive about it despite my visa worries.

It's raining over here and for some reason I don't find it as depressing as the frequent rain in Scotland. Rain over here has a calming affect, where everything seems so peaceful and at ease with nature. I don't grumble and wish for the sun, I look out the window with a hint of melancholy.

I'm yet to decide on how I feel about being home. Before I left the UK I knew that I wasn't ready to come home, I felt as though I hadn't achieved enough and worried that I may have romanticised home too much and my "paradise" would be shattered brutally by reality.

Sydney is a funny place. When you are away, you miss it desperately. You miss the weather, the cafes, the local hangouts but the moment you get back, you realise the sun is way too strong, the local hangouts are filled with the same old people and changing in a direction which you don't like. After a week or so, you are itching to get away again. All of a sudden, the wind and the continous rain in Scotland don't seem too bad, the lack of friends and never leaving the house seem ideal and the incomprehensible Scots, amiable.

I wonder if I no longer have a "home", a sense of belonging. I have struggled with my identity for so long and had wished that by travelling I'd find myself, and for a while, I was sure I had found myself and that Sydney was my home. Now I am not too sure...

Maybe this is what everyone feels when they return from travelling. Maybe home is supposed to be a fickle place; a place with which you have a love-hate relationship.

I never thought I'd say this but I do really miss Edinburgh, and wish I was back in my tiny flat with DK with a few froggers and a few cans of beer, watching QI, waking up the next day, complaining of the cold, having breakfast at the Roseleaf, then listening to football on the radio and ending the day by watching Match of the Day on BBC 1.....