Monday 31 January 2011

The Things I Lost In The Fire

So I'm back. And life goes on. Untouched, it feels, by the great leaps made by our hearts, our heads as we journeyed around South America.

Typing from a London desk, a place I thought of often, too often, and at this very moment the rawness of the whole four months feels completely absent. Etched nowhere. Why is the grass always greener?

Why do we live our lives in the places we can never venture: the past, and the future?

I wish I had written to my future self, posted a few notes for use at a later date. For reference when I was on the road. It could have prevented me dreaming of home when I was exactly where I needed to be. The notes I write to my current self, pointlessly, are 'You wanted all this. You came back. You missed your life. You pined for the missing life...' And now that I am indeed back, I can't negate the returning desperation to escape.

It is not quenched. It has not abated. Does everyone feel this??????

So, when people say 'how does it feel to be back?' And I smile and say 'good' it is not really a lie...but it felt better not to be back. Or at least it does right now. As i sit and dream and try to recall just how it FELT to be so far away, and I find I can only conjure the London me. Deskbound, dutybound. Being home feels normal. I feel abnormal. I have returned to my reality. And the trip was a complete unreality. Like hitting dry sand at speed. It feels like I need to lie in a room with the windows open to breathe and relive everything. Instead of banking more memories, more time, more life; I just need things to STOP for a second.