Coming back to reality

After more than two months in India, wedding hopping and catching up with good friends and good food, I fly back to Johannesburg in less than a week. Usually after this much time travelling, I'm itching to get home....but right now, I'm oddly ambivalent. Perhaps because Nagpur feels about as much like home as Johannesburg does, perhaps because of all of the not-so-fun chores that are waiting for my return, from dentist visits to construction in my flat, to trying to become gainfully employed....And of course, the very unsettling dilemma of how to create a nurturing space for a baby in my current Johannesburg life will start becoming much more real. So far, in a different life on a different continent, it's been a comfortably academic question - pondering with supportive friends about choices, crime, finances, difficult relationships and returning to school all being distant curiosities to muse about over tea. From here, I feel very calm about it all. In a week, I'll need to start navigating everything. Eish!

Still, a part of me is looking forward to getting back....cooking for myself, seeing good friends I've been missing, catching the tail end of summer, getting some 'thinking' work done that's always hard on the road, and tackling all those back burner things that always build up while away.