Tension

Things have moved quickly since Saturday. Now, unexpectedly, I am on the verge of going home. Things at home have taken a turn for the worse, and I feel like I'm needed there, not because my presence will make any practical difference (even if I would like to think so), but because I think my being present will be better for my own state of mind, and I hope also for the state of mind of my family.

So I have a plane ticket for tonight, transiting through Heathrow, and arriving in Singapore on Christmas morning. Christmas eve in the air is not something that I'm looking forward to, but if it's needed then it's needed. And in a bit more than 30 hours' time, the white-blanketed landscape outside that I have grown to love so much will be replaced with another much-loved cityscape. It's mind-boggling how things have come to this in such a short span of time. A week ago, I was still doing astronomy questions in a frenzy, and looking forward to the end of term and a week full of celebrations and lazy aimless afternoons, evenings walking and nights of good conversations. I was hunkering down for a long winter in New York City; and as I look around now in my room, there are signs of a long stay all over the place: the food stocked up, the new supply of winter clothes bought, the new 2009 calendar already pinned up and waiting for the first flip. And now, in a few hours' time, I'll be making my way to Newark Airport and going to the other side of the world.

The other side of the world...where I'm going and where I've been in the last week both seem so alien from my position now. Home is far away, and six months removed from my experience, and the family emergency stands between me and the entire period preceding the end of the final exams. This is an interstitial state that I am inhabiting now - I'm between a departure that was effectively decided last Wednesday and an arrival that will take place on Thursday morning. I want to be somewhere else but here. I want to arrive and be at peace. But at this point in time, I don't think I'm quite ready to depart yet. And certainly not ready to arrive. To return.

I wrote once, long, long ago, in the jungles of Brunei, how a return is made meaningful by change, and we see most clearly what remains constant over time when we return from a long trip. These things are the most important. But this sudden return has left me with insufficient time to prepare for what I'll find when I return. I am unprepared to arrive, and I fear that what I'll find will not be what I expect. Essentially, I fear that the things that I regard as important will be revealed to be transient after all.

And so, in reaction, I cling to the past week, going out as much as I can, to squeeze all that I can out of this week, just so I can remain engaged and avoid being alone. Went on a movie marathon yesterday with G, YR, WR and SN, sneaking into multiple movies on one ticket to get our money's worth. Then we returned to the Ethiopian restaurant that I had visited with A, M and S, and over dinner we suddenly started speaking of politics at home, and it felt like we were in the centre of things surveying our possible futures. And also returned, again and again over the last few days, to Union Square, to buy presents for my family back home, because although Christmas this year is truncated, it should still be marked in some way.

And going through this last week, poised on the verge of both hope and grief, with moments of illuminating clarity and happiness juxtaposed with moments of deepest pain, I find that I have grown to love this life I have here, and the people that I share it with: both old friends and new, both here and elsewhere. I still count myself as extremely lucky to have made so many good friends, friends that have proven to be trustworthy and understanding, people that I can work with and talk to and eat with or simply be with. How things have come to this I do not know; there are moments when I am struck by how undeserving I am of all this, and I fear that I have somehow stepped accidentally into someone else's life, and that the real owner will turn up any moment and have me evicted. In the meantime, though, I am grateful to all my friends for their support and understanding. I cannot imagine what I would have done without them. I suppose it would have been something like Frexprog One, only so much worse due to the acute irony.

And as for this place...what can I say? On the verge of leaving New York City, I am sad that I will not be able to pass the holidays here. I cannot pretend that a part of me doesn't want to go home, and would rather go ice-skating under the great Christmas tree at Rockefeller Centre, watch the ball drop at Times Square and have an intimate dinner with a few friends to toast the start of another great year. This was what I'd imagined this winter would be like, ever since I confirmed my flight to New York in August. How can you say no to these beguiling streets, these streetcorner surprises, these singing subways, this unscripted and spontaneous drama of real life in New York? Things happen here, and a part of me yearns to stay to see what will happen next.

But a return is required, and a part of me also understands that it is good to go back. A change of scenery is nice, no matter how it comes about, and it will be great to have warmth again, and cheap, good food, and a mass transit system that works flawlessly, and my family around me. A part of me wants to see what returning will be like, what gaps have opened up, and which ones can be bridged through storytelling and regaling.

No part of me, though, wants to be in this state: already determined to leave, but waiting to depart, and waiting to arrive. Waiting is the hardest part of all this. I want to either be en route or already there, or not going anywhere at all. I am impatient to get underway, to put an end to this terrible waiting. No long goodbye this time, then.

And this is the 150th entry. What a way to end the year.