Monday, June 13, 2011

This is where an apology should go

For not having written much about anything for a while...

It's dumb, really, the way I get caught up in the little things of daily life when I have time to settle. I stopped posting when I got to Melbourne, except for some amazingly tardy (and still unfinished) posts about the rest of my travels.  I promise I'll get back to them, eventually.  I suppose that's the good thing about having kept at least a written chronicle of sorts, though I stopped writing for a bit in Asia.  But now, I've been away from home almost a year.  And the funny thing is that, aside from the seemingly random moments of "I really wish ___ were here to share this with" I haven't really missed home much.  I've been missing the people, most of all.  The people are what make a place feel different.  Buildings are just buildings.  But the people, and the feel they give a place, can make it or break it.  I guess this comes into play a lot more for me recently that it has in a while.  That's because I've been in rural Australia, working for a harvest labour crew, so I can earn my second working holiday visa. And while I've been here, I've been staying with a Philipino family (my boss') and around the house they don't speak a lot of English, unless they're talking to me, or the toddler (who's three) who I'm pretty sure understands Tagalog anyways.  There are often extra people here, mostly family, but some friends too, but I've taken to hiding in my room, watching tv from my harddrive, because sitting in a room full of people who are (loudly) speaking a language I can't understand all around me gets to be a bit much.  And sometimes, even with two intervening doors between the livingroom and my room closed, the conversation still carries through.  I guess worse than the loud conversation is the occasional yelling that happens.  I mean, yelling is bad enough when you know what's going on.  Worse, really, when you don't.   But what I'm going for, I guess, is that I miss the sense of belonging I've had since getting to Australia. I've got less than 2 weeks left until I get on a plane for Vancouver. I'll be "home" for just about a month, for PJ, and to catch up with friends and family and then I come back to Australia. I'll have to do once more month (well, 18 days, but if I tell myself 4 weeks then I won't have to work weekends) of work in "regional" Australia, and then I'll likely end up back in Melbourne. Where the plan is to find somewhere to live, with friends, and stay for a while. I don't know what going home is going to do to my sense of belonging, or even if it will feel like I belong there at all, but there's nothing to do but find out, really.