Yep, that's right. The weather in Melbourne turns nice, I get myself set up in a great flat, I pick up my new car tomorrow and I'm in a job that I actually quite like, with the prospect of some financial security looming, and suddenly I'm missing the grey, grim life that I led for the past 2 years. Go figure.
I first noticed it last Friday, after a night out with work people. Maybe it was because it was the first night out with them that I'd had, a night where nobody I knew was driving, where I stumbled home in the wee sma's, not having to sneak around fearful of waking anyone, or hoping that there was nobody deciding that I'd slept enough. Maybe it's down to the looming thesis deadline that's evoking memories of late nights in London, or perhaps it was the arrival of some London-related mail. I know I triggered it properly by downloading the latest episodes of Spooks, and reminiscing about all the times that I've run through the Bakerloo platforms at Charing Cross Station, just like Lucas et al were doing in the most recent, trying to pick where they were filming, and getting excited when I recognised it, just like I used to do with Australian films when homesickness started to bite back in London.
Or perhaps it's really all down to L's announcement that she is definitely coming back to Melbourne at the end of this year. It's truly the end of an era once she gets back. Sure, I've still got friends there, there are still people who I would visit if I was to go back. But she is the only one that I knew over there that I also knew here before I left. And when she comes back, it is almost certain to mean that I am here for good as well. And much as I'm loving being back in Melbourne - and don't get me wrong, I love this city like no other - I'm missing some of the freedom of being over there.
Over there I didn't get nightly phone calls from my mother. I didn't feel sit around doing nothing, because it's next to impossible to pin anyone down without booking them months in advance. I was out and about, doing things on whims without having to justify it to anybody. There is a freedom to living on the other side of the world to what you consider your real life, and I miss that. I miss the adventure of wandering a city that is older than my country, older than I can contemplate, where you turn the corner and suddenly you're looking at something that pre-dates not only your own country, but the one you're standing in as well. The twists and turns, the people.
I never thought I would come back here and wax lyrical about London. Maybe it's the realisation that I really can't move back there that has set me off. I don't think I would move back. But I would pick up huge chunks of it and move them here if I could. I think I understand what it was that made the colonialists attempt to reconstruct England in Australia, at least to a certain extent. I'm glad they did.
Actually, I think I know what has set me off. It's the realisation that both of my brothers are deserting the family Christmas, leaving me defenceless on Annual Family Fight Day. I can see their point; it's the first time I've been home for the festive season since 2008, so it's about time I shouldered some of the burden. It feels strange and slightly wrong to be once again contemplating a hot Christmas, let alone one at home but without half my family around.
It's frustrating to think of just how homesick I was before I made the decision to move back here, only to find that I'm missing London now. I had thought I was settled, but it seems I've been kidding myself, at least a little. I'm not really. It's nice to have a home, it's nice to be home, but damn I love to travel. Guess I'll just have to get down to planning another little adventure...
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