I’m brewing a cup of “Boulangerie” tea from Tour de Tea and it smells wonderful…and it also smells like the Wednesday markets at uni. Yet again, I want to cry.
No matter how I slice it, I’m not home. I’m very far from home, my September City, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to find a way out of here. Jericho Bay again, I guess. I’m aware I’m talking nonsense, or stream-of-consciousness…ing…there needs to be a verb for that…but I just…I don’t know. I just miss home. I miss uni. I miss jacaranda trees in wild bloom, I miss chocolate milk tea, I miss flat whites with four sugars and studying by the lakes, I miss hope. I miss possibility.
The tea tastes wonderful, as well…mild and comforting. I don’t want to pollute it with saltwater. I just want to go home, so much. It’s not a place, not wholly. It’s…everything. A feeling. Several places.
A friend visited me in 2018, and I’m so glad they got to see me at my…well, not my best, because my brain was being an absolute disaster for the majority of their visit, but. Me in my home. My September City at its best, the places I love. I wouldn’t let anyone visit me now, see me as I am, like this.
I should have gotten up and asked them to dance. I should have. I should have. I was two drinks down and I was still a coward.
Maybe I’m being negative and refusing to see anything good in my situation. I don’t think I am; there’s just so little of it here. And besides, being forced to thrive in a toxic environment is NOT a sign of happiness or health or anything of the sort.
Sure, there are possums. And stars. And a lovely wee dog who is a handful, but I love absolutely ferociously. But it’s not enough. It’s not home. I’m rotting at the core and it’s spreading outwards and outwards into the grey mist that is the future for me. I want to melt that mist, but I just don’t have the resources.
I have the willpower. I have the sheer bloody-mindedness. But I do not have the resources. Doubt I ever will. You can blame capitalism for that one.