I cannot believe I have been home nearly 4 months. More
importantly, I can’t believe that I have been home 4 months and I’m still
living out of a suitcase! Finally it seems like in the next few weeks I will be
able to get my stuff out of my parent’s garage and into my new flat, which is
very exciting.
I know it’s just stuff, but not having it all around me
means that I still feel a little bit in limbo. Life doesn’t really seem real if
that makes sense. It still feels like I’m in that waiting phase, just waiting
for the next move, the next step, the next thing to come along. And it’s taking
a little while for my head to catch up and realise ‘this is it, this is life
now’.
And I have to admit, I miss my life in Shanghai. Not so much
the air and the craziness but the way I lived. Travel, food, art, culture,
friends, no responsibilities. When you do come back and you have to book your
mates in for nights out 3 months in advance, it makes you appreciate how easy
it is to send someone a WeChat message on a Saturday afternoon and just toddle
off to the pub.
None of this means I’m not enjoying being back. I am. I just
feel the odd little pang when I get group texts from people still out there, or
pictures from my friend who has just spent the last week on a beach as it’s
October bank holiday time (this time last year I was in Singapore).
Back in the real world, things are going well. I’m working,
spending time with friends, there may be a new ‘someone’ in my life, loving
spending time with my niece and family, going to lots of gigs and am heading
off on holiday to Egypt in a few weeks.
And to deal with the itchy feet I have booked the trip of a
lifetime – Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and a little bit of Thailand, departing March
next year – very excited about that! Only question is do I do a stop off in
Shanghai?!
