My So-Called Life

I have been back in London for about 32 hours now, and the most prominent emotion I am feeling is confusion. The last 17 days have been spent in a whirlwind of activity in Cape Town and Creighton (near Durban), visiting with our families and friends and attending my best friend's wedding. It was busy, it was decadent (in Cape Town we like to have a competition called How Many Times Can We Eat Out In 1 Week), it was gloriously sunny and it was totally fulfilling.

In short, it was home. It was absolutely where Shoes and I feel we are meant to be.

So to come back to London, to get on the tube this morning and go to work like I've done every other day for the last 3 and a half years, to see the people I usually see and talk about the things we usually talk about.....it should feel normal pretty quickly, right? After all, this is what I do; it's what I've been doing since I moved here and will continue to do until the day we go home for good. This is my life. Why then am I sitting in front of my pc feeling like I've accidentally stepped into someone else's life?

I am less miserable and more struggling to adjust to what is in essence a case of right time, wrong place. I shouldn't be here. I should be in Cape Town where I belong, close to my family, close to my sister and sisters-in-law, close to the beach and the sky so blue it is rated one of the top 5 blue skies in the world. I should be having braais in the garden under the sun, not on a corner of a first floor balcony in the grey drizzle. I should not have to comfort Mini-Me over facebook that the end of the airport goodbyes is fast approaching - I should be able to say you know what, that's it - that was the last one.

There are reasons why I can't do all those things. My friends and family know why we're still here, and they understand. We have a plan, and we're fulfilling our dreams as much as it sometimes hurts us and them to do so. I know I have more to do over here before we can come home for good, and I've made my peace with it.

But as much as I tell myself this is all how its meant to be, I still feel like I have hijacked someone else's desk, someone else's job and someone else's purpose. And the girl whose life I have right now...it's not a bad life, and she's obviously a lucky girl. She just doesn't feel like me.

I've done this before, and previous experience tells me that this too shall pass. Maybe tonight when I go home, my house will feel like my house and not a friend's flat. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'll just sit here and spy on this other girl until it's time to leave to go and vote. I may not feel like myself today, but at least this afternoon I will join 7500 other expats in London in feeling proudly South African!