... where the heart is?
Frankly I don't know. Is the answer to the question of home as simple as a single address? I've got at least two homes right now. Some might call that greedy but a heart shared across 2 countries isn't as fun as it might sound.
Going back to England recently was a great opportunity to catch up with family, friends and felines. I had a fabulous time, but there’s no escaping that it was an emotional roller coaster: each exuberant hello was followed far too soon by sad goodbyes. That is the reality of choosing to live on the other side of the planet. The time you get to spend with those you left in your home of origin is far too fleeting. That was the sacrifice I made.
Why would I do that? What is so special about this new life I’ve built for myself? Well it took time but I adjusted and I nested. I made friends, created new routines, adopted pets, started writing again and one day I woke and realised that I love this new life. It suits who I am now. Living alone so far from where I grew up forced me to custom build my life to suit who I am today.
Sometimes you can feel rootless because you've lost the comfortable short hand of years of shared experiences. It can feel as if people don't know who you really are, because they didn’t see the evolution for themselves. At the same time this can be liberating. There are no assumptions based on the old "yesterday" you.
We are all works in progress, we need to change but sometimes we don't let ourselves. Maybe that is where my urge to move to the land of far far away came from. I am more guilty than most of not just getting stuck but wallowing in a rut. I needed to shake things up and as I never do things by half measures I now live in Australia (new home) and only get to visit England (original home) every other year.
I definitely shook things up. In fact I had a much needed mental collapse. I had buried trauma beneath the rubble of stress and routine for years, but finding me distracted by a new environment it managed to sneak to the surface. This was terrifying. I’ve never felt such darkness, the black dog bit me hard. Shortly after being diagnosed with acute depression my doctor told me that her patients who made it through this kind of breakdown often ended up being the strongest and most well adjusted people that she knew.
I’m not an advertisement for the obscenely well adjusted just yet but after 3 years I’m newly off the medication and so far the black dog is staying away. I like to think that Louis the cat wouldn’t be letting him visit for long if he did turn up. Frankly the life-sucking parasite depression isn’t welcome in any of my homes.
Photos: Top is Daisy May Dazzler resident cuddler in my London home. Below is Louis my Sydney home guard cat & incorrigible flirt
