Surprise, surprise. Ellie is having a hard time discerning what the concept of home is again.Really, it’s been an annoying preoccupation of mine for the last five years now. There was the binary Calgary/Edmonton opposition going on for awhile, and then I royally mixed things up by picking up and heading over to the motherland.
Which was only supposed to be a year. Which happened to stretch out over a number of them.
But, you know, since it was always supposed to be a temporary thing in the first place (which was emphasized by the fact my ex refused to let us buy any furniture “just in case” we picked up and moved somewhere else), I always took the stance that — though I lived in Deutschland and quite liked it there — Canada was my real home. Calgary, in particular, seeing as I adamantly refused to have anything to do with the Greater Edmonton region and preferred to pretend it was just a black hole that didn’t actually exist.
Then I moved back to Calgary and had the “Oh shit, I actually feel more at home in Germany” epiphany.
Na, toll.
So, I spent the greater part of my cool nine months (since two of the eleven were in Germany on, errr, vacation) in Canada planning a trip back over the pond.
But wait, there’s more! It wouldn’t be enough to be happy in Germany, oh no it wouldn’t. You see, because being happy and content and everything-is-hunky-dory-in-Germany would deny the fact that I actually had a life in Canada before moving over the first time, not to mention that huge growing spurt that was the nine-months-in-hell aka second-shot-at-Calgary-related-happiness it was.
So, is Germany completely home? Errr… still no.
Na, toll.
Then there is little Ellie, sad and homesick, not for Canada, but for familiar faces, preferably of people she actually likes to spend time with.
Enter an emergency trip to Finland.
Well fuck me. As if we needed to mix things up a little bit more.
There are a lot of things I like about Finland. One, it’s kind of like Canada. Only in Europe. Europe’s Canada, one could say. Best of both worlds, minus the bakeries that are actually found in “proper” Europe (aka Germany, France, Austria, etc.). Crappy weather, binge drinking, TV evenings and doing a whole heck of a lot of nothing. Which isn’t really vacation, but life as usual. Which is probably the way it’s supposed to be.
Then, there’s E.
I CANNOT believe how nice it’s been to sit with someone and talk openly about EVERYTHING.
It’s been a relaxed, I-don’t-give-a-crap-because-we’re-best-friends-anyway sort of deal, and that’s the way it should be. Spending time with E.’s family as if they were my family? Check. Time with g-parents? Also check. (And hey, they’re a lot more welcoming of me than the actual ones I have that are still alive.) Hanging around on the couch and watching Usain Bolt make an ass of himself/experiencing a growing interest in Newdick from New Zealand, for a variety of reasons which were aptly termed by J. as the “reason girls watch sports”? Also check.
This leads me to a new dilemma.
WHERE THE HELL IS MY HOME?
Because if you magically gave me some actual Finnish skills beyond pointing and saying “maito” or “Hän on tomppeli”, I’d be hard-pressed to not tell you it was Finland. Home is where the heart is, and all that.
I actually have a feeling of ice-cold dread when I think about going back to my regular life. Not because my regular life is crappy (well, aside from my research — which I brought with me to Finland anyway — it is pretty lackluster), but because it’s been such a treat having someone around who loves you for who you are.
I love Germany. It’s madlove. But not with the people. My madlove is with the scenery, the bakeries (as long as I’m not talking to the people behind the counter, mind), spending time with Maxie, my research, and doing my own thing. It’s not with the people who pretend to like me while I pretend to like them, even though we really don’t give two shits about each other.
True, you should always give a place time to let it (and the people) grow on you before throwing up your hands and calling it quitters.
But frankly, I’m still hard-pressed to believe it when my two best friends in the world became my best friends in less than a month. And still are. Chemistry, and all that.
And it’s not in Germany.
Which leads me to the big question…
What the heck am I doing??
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