Flip

The truth is that I’m scared. All of the time. Scared of being here, and more scared of going home.  Home is known, here is unknown. Or. Inverse. I’m jobless, penniless, dependent, exhausted. I am unemployable here. At least in regards to the profession that I studied for years to become part of. A profession that would guarantee that I would never be broke again. And yet I am. Again. Debt keeps accruing and the money is long gone. Speaking to my former housemate reveals that half my stuff has gone missing, my room is gone, my bed. I don’t even have the energy to be angry anymore. It’s resignation and no surprise. Once upon a time, when I had been freshly dumped* and back when I had a life full of interesting things – things I’d worked hard for, things I loved, I remember telling my sister that I would gladly trade it all in for the relationship**. The right one. Ironically, I find myself in just that position.

Flip.

At home I have things. I have books. Books whose pages I miss. Words that remind me. John Locke said that identity is memory. I want to re-read that passage. I want to pick up my copy of The Mandarins, and I want to press my nose against it’s pages, inhale the history of a second hand book. I want to lie on the grass, underneath the big shady tree in my backyard. My backyard. I want to walk out to the letter box and pick up my mail. (I used to get mail!) I want to go to a pub with friends after work on a Friday night, sit in the beer dark and listen to music – live music – in English. I want to go the beach, swim in board shorts, worry about skin cancer and lie on the soft sand out of view of the next person. I want sandwiches on the beach and dinners on jetties and chocolate paddle pops. I want to listen to music, sitting cross legged on the floor in my lounge room, my puppy licking my face. I want to wake up in the morning with a purpose. A job to go to. A routine. A 9 to 5. Friends on weekends. A stainless steel sink in the kitchen. No more of this marble bullshit. I want neighbours that are friendly. That pop over and swap home grown vegetables with me. My watermelon for your farm fresh peas.

I want to go home.

Flip.

I love this dirty, rude, congested, ugly-beautiful city. I love the almost unbearable heat that radiates all night off the marble (what else) footpaths. I love hearing my neighbours argue and laugh and fuck and cry, and, I love knowing that when we meet in the corridor neither of us will say hello, even though we probably know more about each other’s lives than our closest friends do. I love the freedom to wear what you want to wear to the beach (unless it’s board shorts – you absolutely cannot wear board shorts). Fat women, skinny women, awkward women, in-between women, old women, young women – everyone wears a bikini. And clothes are worn because they’re beautiful, or comfortable, not because you haven’t eaten in a month in order to be worthy of a designer dress. I love long nights eating under the trees in the courtyard of some small taverna, where the menu is brief but each dish is someone’s homemade specialty. I love that this city has emotions, it lives and breathes and is never repressed. Yelling, tears, anger, laughter, misery, despair, joy – it’s all on the street, any time you care to look. I love the tolerance. Tolerance of every shade of insanity. I love village life. The slowed down pace matches the scenery – the mountains – old as time. I love this man that I share my life with. The fights over nothing, the screaming, the tears, the bitter battles over toothpaste and drinking straight out of the water jug. I love the way that he whispers he loves me in his sleep at night as he kisses between my shoulder blades. I love that I have no secrets from him. I love the naked trust between us.

Flip.

So how do I leave?

Flip.

Or. How do I stay?

* I thought he was the love of my life.

** I was clearly an idiot.

Photograph by lukeroberts