Well, (as Samwise says at the end of The Lord of the Rings) I'm back.
One of the downsides of being scrupulously honest (!) is that it makes certain 'pleasantries' kind of unpleasant. Since arriving at work yesterday afternoon (only three hours after getting off my 24-hour flight, no less), I've had the following conversation about 20 times:
"Hey! You're back!"
"Yep."
"How was your holiday?"
"It was pretty rough, to be honest."
"Oh, why is that?"
"I went home because my parents are divorcing and my mum is inconsolable with grief."
"Oh. I really wish you hadn't told me that. I was just saying hi. Couldn't you just have said: 'fine' and spared me the details of your home life?"
Okay, that last line never happens- though it does make people uncomfortable. But, bloody hell, my 'holiday' consisted almost entirely of a low-level anxiety attack that occasionally escalated into full-scale nauseous can't-breathe panic attacks, and people want to hear that it was fun?!? Sorry buckos, I didn't have fun living it, you think I'm going to let you merrily go forward with the illusion that I did?
I'm being a bit harsh, really. I did have some fun. Going to San Diego and seeing my brother was a lot of fun- San Diego is great. Everyone is super-friendly, the weather was GREAT, the surf was great, it was great to see Ben, just, well, it was fun. I'm going to do that trip a lot more often, I think.
Spending time with my nephew and his dad was really good- he's such a dear little soul. Playing with kids is fun because you get to be a kid again, for a little while (until they start screaming for no reason, then you get to hand them back to their parents- luckily Felix was abnormal in this regard and was largely sensible), although some might say that's not much of a departure for me.
Whiritoa was, and always has been and always will be, great. The place is just...cleansing? I don't want to sound like too much of a hippy. It's just beautiful and quiet and peaceful, and it was good to catch up with old friends, if sad to know that I won't see them again for a while.
My friend Grant gave me a copy of the new NIN album, and I have to say the timing could not have been more perfect. If I ever needed a burst of nails before, I needed it then. I listened to it more or less nonstop since I opened it- review forthcoming.
Having my niece born, and getting to see her before I left, was definitely the highlight. She was ten days overdue, and I'd pretty much accepted that I wouldn't see her, but I woke up on Sunday and just knew that she'd be born that day, and a few hours later we got the call that Linda had gone into labour.
The sad thing, apart from the problems with my parents, was that the last time I was in NZ, I felt like I was home again. I felt like London was the life above my real life, and meanwhile that was waiting for me, like a safety-net, and if ever life in London went pear-shaped and everything fell apart and I had to escape, NZ would be there to catch me and I could just slip into my older life. This time, my older life was gone. The house I left was sold, my dad's fled, my family is scattered. I went and saw one of my oldest and best friends, Troy, and we hung out and got mashed and played LAN games and it was just like old times. But I looked around and thought: "Thank God I haven't been doing THIS for the last five years." and I think I knew at that moment that the safety net was gone. NZ is just another place now, removed in time if not in location.
London is my home, for better or for worse.
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I had the same thing I got when I went home, 2 or 3 times ago. It was no longer home, but a place I visit.
Although my shift was just from settling in London rather than catastrophic family shit, but it does happen. It's weird to look at the same place through different eyes.