Lost In the In Between

Four letters and one word. Home. The word evokes memories and emotions like nothing else be they good, bad, indifferent or something else entirely. Home is where the heart is can mean a multitude of things to different people, different cultures and in different contexts. It can be safety; it can be danger or violence. Or all of the above. But what of a heart that exists in two places at once? Is that even possible? What if the home you made, in another place and time, even temporarily does not exist anymore? And the ‘home’ you have returned to is not how you remember? What then? How does one coexist between worlds, having grown in one and then outgrown another?

This is what is to be lost. In the in between. Like the period between Christmas and New Year’s where we live in suspended animation. The latter part of each year barrels us towards this pinnacle that is Christmas with all the trimmings and expectations often unwittingly foisted upon us. But like the buildup to a cyclone, it’s over in a day and then the aftermath begins. Senses overloaded by too many social interactions or numbed by any number of addictions leave us adrift in the in between before doing it all again to herald in the new year. And we do this every year as is the social custom for many of us.

This is what it’s like to return home. You have this impending deadline to leave by with all the build-up that comes beforehand. The long goodbyes, the packing, the logistics of getting home, the real and imagined hopes of familiar sounds and smells again. Of family and friends, familiar flavours and neighbourhoods through which you can safely roam. The build-up to returning is almost like every memory is on steroids, the colours you remember brighter than ever, the romantic notion of friendships and relationships restored to some lofty intellectual heights, the comfort of the familiar once again. To be understood and to understand others easily without awkward faux pas or the perils of navigating unwritten social norms.

No longer will you hear the distinctive start-up of two stroke engines in the street below or the constant hum of never-ending traffic, the regular calls of the street sellers or the occasional barney in the street between an expat and his mistress. No longer will you be hypervigilant as you dodge street carts, tuk-tuks and bikes while navigating your way through the chaos that is Phnom Penh. No longer will you witness the stamina of the of the old men still drinking beers at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning or be woken by the monks chanting at the local pagoda. No longer will you sweat buckets before eight o’clock from a simple walk down the street or experience the joy of seeing a rare hornbill fly across the city skyline.

In the bedlam of re-entry, you feel a sense of relief of having survived and made it home irrespective of your mental state. You enter a temporary state of bliss and feel buoyant with feelings of happiness and joy as you transition back into your previous life. You are distracted from your feelings by restoring lost connections or basking in the spotlight of the one that returned.

Then the spell breaks like a wave on the beach. All that energy and power dissipates leaving you becalmed and feeling adrift. The colours are suddenly not brighter than you remember and the novelty of the familiar wears thin so quickly that in just a matter of days it doesn’t feel like you’ve been anywhere at all. That it was all a dream and none of it was real. You try and fail to find your anchor unable to steady yourself against the currents that run through you and buffet you against the waves of emotion.

Except, you have changed. You no longer fit in the familiar neighbourhoods and streets you once did. Your friends and family feel like aliens cosplaying their previous roles in your life. The whiplash of leaving one life and entering another, albeit a familiar one while still processing the transition and subconsciously measuring your growth, leaves you dazed and confused.

There is discomfort in realising this change and not knowing quite what to do about it. You cannot go back but how do you move forward in this new and uncomfortable version of you? You might rail against the changes, feeling hypersensitive and raw or you may just blindly feel your way, unsteady and unsure about how to just be. There is grief and loss for what you have left behind despite the initial excitement of coming and being home. This is a transition of sorts, as if you have shed the skin of your previous self and need to navigate this new version of you. New growth is often painful as we outgrow what doesn’t serve us and grow into new possibilities. What those possibilities are is up to us.

Then a curious thing happens without you even realising. Inexplicably, what you were so eager to leave behind starts to take on a romantic hue. Like and old black and white movie or rose-coloured glasses. The exotic memories of what you left behind become larger than life. The habits you brought home, the new ideas and ways of doing things, and the tendrils of friendships formed in faraway lands are all woven into your soul like silken threads. These threads form the new core of our being. This doesn’t resolve the unsettled feelings of arriving home again nor answer any of the questions you have about what home is nor what it means. Those are the questions that will remain unanswered at least for the time being. Yet it gives you hope that, while this version of home is different for this version of you, it’s still home in its most basic sense. And for now, that is enough. Just. Until next time that is.