Going back

So there it is, in the phone calls, voices crackling over mountains, land mass, oceans. In emails organising freight, and promises of snow capped mountains and a flat 4 blocks from the beach.

Coming home.

I had to.

Last summer amongst sun drenched vineyards, I knew. That sometime between then and now I'd have to make that decision, that 9 years had pushed and pulled me under, that the difference was somewhere between catching my breath and stepping forward or staying still while all around me changed. That going forward meant going back, that when I woke up and realised my dreams were tangible that it would be time. And so it is.

Now.

And the secret I've held onto, shared only with those closest to me, is now out. It had started to pick away at me, sleepless, and when I slept nightmares of amputated hands and my parents' back yard. Stuck somewhere between where I wanted to go and where I wanted to be. Somewhere between never settling, forever moving and a future where I could at a push, make tentative roots.

And so this week, I resigned.

Started a time line, booked freight to ship over books I could never part with, my bed, my table, photographs. I've started being ruthless; going through paperwork I've carried with me for 9 years, cards and letters, legal papers from the sale of my house (the last time I felt like a proper grown up). Looked up boot sales to sell all that which should go to a good home, made piles of the clutter that has followed me from house to house. Sentimentality cannot be budgeted.

And in between I've started to daydream, locked in limbo between now and what's to come, writing down what I'll miss and what I won't, what I'll gain. Tried to imagine my weekends, not along the South Bank but bracing against the bitter cold, learning to trust my feet again. Not spent lying on the Heath but amongst sand and sea. Of clean streets, and soft drawls. Of Sunday mornings not at Bar Italia over espresso, but with my flesh and blood, lazy fingers thumbing magazines at Caffe Artigiano.

Home.

The next few weeks will go by, suddenly and with purpose. There are bags and boxes to be packed, loose ends to tie up. I've changed my vocabulary; no longer fluid flippancy and vague suggestions but confirmed dates. Flights to be booked, a Canadian passport long since expired, to be renewed. Flurries of emails, CV's and favours to call in. Courses to be chosen, schools to be researched. Leaving drinks every Friday night at the pub round the back.

I shall miss it, London. More than I think I can ever say.