Distance and Time
Distance was something that never really bothered me. Distance, was a part of my life from birth – by the simple virtue that travel, to a greater than average extent, was a fundamental part of my DNA.
For as far back as I can remember, packing my bags, saying goodbye (or rather, see you later), moving homes and exploring the world solo came naturally to me. So natural that I would treat a move across the Atlantic as casually as going grocery shopping. I made a point of always seeing my family several times a year, and as much as I loved them, I never felt a great sense of loss, guilt or even yearning to stop me from creating such distance between us. As far as I was concerned, it was the premise of our family to be cosmopolitan globe trotters who seamlessly remained close whilst being geographically apart. If anything, our handling of distance and the effort we made to meet with each other around the globe was our identity. Or, at least this is what I thought for most of my youth and young adult life – but, it seems, time changes everything.
I didn’t want to stay still, at my first opportunity at 18 years old, after having spent my entire childhood and teenage years travelling the world with my parents and brother, I paved the way to what I believed would be the life of an expeditionist, off to live in New York I went, then to live in Australia, then to live in London, then to live in Paris and back to Australia again – and countless exotic far flung countries and continents that I visited and explored in between. Anywhere but the house I grew up in. I genuinely believed that living in India for the first 4 years of my life gave me an inbuilt spiritual vegabond compass; and for many years- that seemed to be case. I didn’t know the meaning of the words “ home sick.”
Yet here I am, in transit, a place and action that has always been so familiar – feeling a great sense of loss after having seen my family for the first time in two years (covid). I look around the house I grew up in and have to hold back the tears as I feel the ghosts and memories of every room, the passing of time, time that I had previously taken so horribly for granted, in favour of distance and exploration - now, I can see the 6 year old version of myself peddling her new bicycle through the hallway with my brother and cat Douglas as I stand on the same marble floor I did in 1990. Maybe this happens to all of us as we get older, or perhaps the pandemic has made sentimental homebodies of people who were once free spirits. I find myself nostalgic about past homes, and only now, realise what they meant to me – even though I was once so quick to pack up and leave them. They are the ghosts, the memories, the time that has passed and I cannot get back.
Am I alone in feeling this way? I’m not sure. I find myself bound in a tug of war between childhood and adulthood at almost 35 years old. The child in me still wants to hop around the world, this time with my husband in towe. The adult in me want to take any opportunity to see my mum and be in the home that holds so much of our combined family past.
Perhaps I am the epitome of “you don’t miss the water until it’s gone.” It was only when my childhood home and family were no longer available to me (covid), that I realised how much they actually meant to me .
The pandemic, if nothing else, has offered perspective.
