Summer came and went, without a post, without a trace, really. Easily the fastest summer in a while. What happened? Why did it go so fast? Why am I back, my tan fading fast, trying to fight off the rain?But anyway...
This year it dawned on me that I live a double life: most of the year in Belfast, my second home, and in the summer and Christmas holidays, back in my first home, in Greece. This October it will be 12 years that I am away from Greece (a scary thought that I cannot really process most of the time), which means that the people I have back home are diminishing rapidly: my family, my cousins, my new nephews and nieces and old, trusty friends. When I go to Greece, I want to see them, but even more I want to have the illusion that I actually have a life there. A life where I can have someone to go out for a coffee with, or go for a drink with, or go to the beach with, or go shopping with, or go to an island with. I expect to have these people because I always did in the past: I am Greek, I have greek friends, right? Thing is, I am not there for these people, not in their everyday life. At best I am at the other end of a line, a fuzzy picture on Skype, and that when we manage to co-ordinate. But I'm not there there, am I? And still I expect to have these people on stand by when I decide to grace them with my presence for a month in the summer. And most of the time they indulge me, and they make me feel normal. As if they put their life on hold and just half-live when I'm not there and then when I come, we resume our life together. Sometimes though this doesn't really work. People are not available when I want to go on holiday. Or they have other things to do when I want to go shopping. Or they bring other people (OTHER friends) when we go to the beach. And then I get annoyed, or even worse sad. Because I know deep down that this double life is just a bunch of bullshit. I am a nomad, I always used to say, and I used to like this thought.
But this also means I don't have two homes.
It simply means I have none.
This year it dawned on me that I live a double life: most of the year in Belfast, my second home, and in the summer and Christmas holidays, back in my first home, in Greece. This October it will be 12 years that I am away from Greece (a scary thought that I cannot really process most of the time), which means that the people I have back home are diminishing rapidly: my family, my cousins, my new nephews and nieces and old, trusty friends. When I go to Greece, I want to see them, but even more I want to have the illusion that I actually have a life there. A life where I can have someone to go out for a coffee with, or go for a drink with, or go to the beach with, or go shopping with, or go to an island with. I expect to have these people because I always did in the past: I am Greek, I have greek friends, right? Thing is, I am not there for these people, not in their everyday life. At best I am at the other end of a line, a fuzzy picture on Skype, and that when we manage to co-ordinate. But I'm not there there, am I? And still I expect to have these people on stand by when I decide to grace them with my presence for a month in the summer. And most of the time they indulge me, and they make me feel normal. As if they put their life on hold and just half-live when I'm not there and then when I come, we resume our life together. Sometimes though this doesn't really work. People are not available when I want to go on holiday. Or they have other things to do when I want to go shopping. Or they bring other people (OTHER friends) when we go to the beach. And then I get annoyed, or even worse sad. Because I know deep down that this double life is just a bunch of bullshit. I am a nomad, I always used to say, and I used to like this thought.
But this also means I don't have two homes.
It simply means I have none.
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