Since one year...

It’s exactly one year today since I landed back home. This is an attempt to write my way around this feeling that I have been so struggling to articulate today, purely self-indulgent and certainly of no real worth to anyone but me. You have been warned.

I keep a short diary of every day, locked into my mobile phone calendar and heaven forbid should any curious cab driver ever unearth it the day I finally lose my phone on a bender. The premise of this blog (such lofty ideals) was to use that as my basis for these entries.
My entry from that day doesn’t reveal much – I watched Heroes on the plane, sat by an Irish woman and got the short line at customs.

My memory from that day doesn’t reveal much more…

I remember my arm was broken. I remember leaving Schipol Airport in Amsterdam the day before, and being in an utter state of shock, but that would be the entry for the 29th October, not the 30th. I remember so much from my trip, but so little of this day.

Why is it then that this anniversary has me so spun sideways?

Initially I thought it was the circumstances of today that were hitting me, but as the day wears on I think that less and less. It doesn’t help that coincidentally my parents arrived in Amsterdam yesterday, welcomed by my Dutch Angels who’d kissed me goodbye exactly one year ago to that day. The universe is a perverse lil bitch sometimes, she really is.

The whole thing has made me very reflective – on who I am now, who I was then, and certainly on who I was way back when I originally flew out near-on three years before. The mind is quite literally boggling, though externally perhaps I seem pretty much the same.

I feel wiser, tireder, stronger, more secure and not a little jaded. It’s this last one that doesn’t sit with me, as anyone who knows me would be unsurprised to learn. My optimism is so all embracing it’s almost dangerous, and is something of which I am quite proud.

Do we have to become more jaded as we mature? Is it a maturation necessity to surrender not just our youthful energy, but also our youthful enthusiasm and naivety? God knows I am willingly going down kicking and screaming on all three fronts, but going down I am.

I’m getting older, wiser, smarter and if I do say so, hotter. I like getting older, and enjoy my own company and my life more for each year I dance / stumble / power my way through. But these milestones and their consequent reflection is a bit nasty these days…

Maybe coz we are by definition running out of them?... Yeah, maybe.

Maybe coz I am honestly still lying to myself and I DON’T like my life, my job, my mind, my body?… Lol methinks nup on that one.

I do miss my gypsy life, but it’s missing the people that makes being home cruel. I miss them all so much it is like a physical pain some days, and consequently I literally shut my mind to it momentarily just so I can appreciate the present.

Of course they are all always in my heart. I have been so incredibly blessed for people in my life. People who have believed in me, trusted me, challenged me, hurt me, loved me, shit me to tears.. on this side of the globe and the other.

But I miss them every day, so I don’t think that’s what is getting to me today.
I quote Lucas… “What’s with today today?”

F*ed if I know kids… Sometimes we just gotta ride them out I guess.

Happy Anniversary to myself. From myself. Bring on tomorrow.