And now the news, both good, and less so. In one week, I’m set to leave home for about a year, transplanted from Europe to Asia. However, in that time, it appears highly likely that the house I’ve lived in the past twenty years, which is practically all my life, will be sold, so that when I return from the Far East, things might look slightly different from what I’m used to. 

With everyone contextified, let me write down some more.

This past month has been incredibly busy, mostly in a good way. A lot of time has been spent filtering my childhood, starting with clothes. After twenty years of collecting those, I had accrued a great deal that was ripped beyond repair, simply far too small, or strictly disapproved of by my fashion savvy girlfriend. Half could be thrown or given away. Then I took a good look at the Lego I had spent so many hours dreaming about, then building, and finally, put on a shelf to gather dust. They turned out to be a worthwhile investment. With some effort, I even managed to get a profit on most of them. However, there is no way I could bring myself to mistreat my loved books in the same way. Them, I sorted and puzzled carefully into cardboard boxes, to unpack and restack in a year’s time, even if the question of where remains a mystery. 

Climbing and descending the stairs of this old house in the process of cleaning up, either to find more boxes, or to store freshly filled ones in the basement, I stumbled across a whole load of interesting discoveries. Folders with undeveloped film rolls, perhaps thirty or more years old, holding pictures that had never been seen. A big stack of drawings my Dad made when he was my age, or pottery artifacts from Mom, dusty and hidden. And older traces still, postcards written by my grandparents from places far away, stashed halfway between a novel someone never bothered to finish reading. Messages from the past, not written for me, as I was yet to be born for decades. Still, I’m reading them now. 

And as I won’t be back for a year, a lot of time has been spent saying goodbye to friends and family, meetings where I can bring up these old postcards, drawings and ceramics, to tease out untold stories from the family I thought I knew so well already. Simultaneously, with the memories recalled, this has been a month of great pride. Because my girlfriend Indi has been the newest member of our family for a good year and a half now, and seeing the great lengths to which everyone has gone to make her feel welcomed and loved has been nothing less than amazing. From the last breakfast with Mom, fresh pancakes and pastries on the table, to the last lunch with my grandparents, equally delicious and everyone showing off their best English, and even Italian, to the last tea break with my Aunt, who brought three entire bouquets of flowers, and the last dinner with Dad and Sis, the whole of it felt like a scene out of a movie. I couldn’t have wished for better.

Sitting at home, with four days left before departure, I have learned more about myself, the place I’ve lived for twenty years, and the family who’ve brought me so far, than ever before. 

Strange how things work out.