Mentalechoes

I’ve been off work the last couple of days with a hurt back because a superman impression I was doing went a bit wrong. So while I’ve been undergoing couch therapy I’ve been doing some thinking about my living arrangements, or more specifically where I want to live. I’ve been away from home (Australia) now for 7 years, and the yearning to go back is getting stronger with each month that passes. Originally I left Bris-vegas because I had the feeling it was the arse end of the universe and bugger all exciting happened there, except for the friday night drinks “pub prowl” at the Victory Hotel. So with 6 months of planning and preparation I sold up everything I had and jumped on a one way flight to London. That was August 1997. Over the course of those years from then and now, I’ve travelled to loads of different countries and subcontinents; lived and worked in two wildly different cultures; seen and done some amazing things that changed me forever; and really generally just did the travelling expat thing in the most full-on way.

Now though, I feel the pull of my home tugging away at me like a strong breeze will whip at your hair on the beach. There is something about home that just makes you feel like you belong and you’re not a stranger in a strange land. Living in The Netherlands is like that for me at the moment. I’m not really integrated here because my dutch sucks and without dutch language you don’t really make dutch friends. Most of my friends from years gone by have left, and I haven’t really made any new friends to replace any of them.

So I see myself forced with a choice; learn dutch and integrate, and make the steps to become a member of dutch society, or pack up and fuck off back home! Either way, I can’t just keep sitting here on the outside looking in because it’s really not working for me, and it’s making feel really miserable a lot of the time. Yeah well it’s good to know what my options are but the problem is I just can’t decide which one I want to follow. And that’s the sucky part really; I just keep sitting on the fence because I can’t decide one way or another.

Do other people have this problem? Is this just me being a useless mong? Should I even be asking that kind of a question in a public place where I am likely to get mercilessly flamed?

So many questions and no answers! I think I am going to buy one of those psychic twisty balls on the weekend and do some hard soul searching.

Padwanna!