Far from my home/ is the country I have reached

Day 28 – Something that you miss
I ended up taking a longer break from internetting than I'd initially planned, mainly due to being insanely busy the entire time I was in Australia. Because I was only there for such a short period of time, every waking moment that I wasn't at the conference or the wedding was spent catching up with various friends and relatives. I had a wonderful time, but I was kind of busy.

Anyway, appropriately, this post is about what I miss. I'm feeling desperately homesick at the moment. It was worse than when I left Sydney in January. I actually walked sobbing through Sydney Airport, which was kind of embarrassing. At the most bizarre moments, I'll find myself feeling absolutely wretched with anguish about how much I miss everyone back in Australia. I haven't really felt this homesick since 2008, and it's kind of surprising.

So, yeah. I miss Australia. It's weird, as I am completely, utterly, perfectly happy in Cambridge. As anya_1984 mentioned to me when I had dinner with her and jonjonc a couple of weeks ago, 'you seem to have found yourself, Ronni. You're so much happier than any other time I've known you.' Considering we've been friends for more than 13 years, I would be inclined to agree. I feel like I am myself, utterly and completely, here, in a way that I had not been in Australia since I went to school at age five.

I don't miss the person that I was in any way. I ranged between depression and neutrality (interspersed with rare moments of delirious happiness), I treated my friends not as well as I should have, and I always felt as if my life lacked in some way. But I do miss the little things. I've spoken about this before.

Mostly, what I miss is the sense of having common cultural references. Being Australian, it's not horrifically bad, since so much of Australian culture draws on USian and British culture anyway. But I miss being able to refer to specifically Australian cultural points of reference (ABC Kids shows, well-known Australian newsreaders and journalists, ads, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne suburbs, 'going down the South Coast', The Chaser, Spicks and Specks, the Sydney fireworks, etc etc etc) and being sure of the immediate understanding of my interlocutors.

We use things like this as markers of solidarity. They are the equivalent of asking 'you know?' at the end of every sentence. Understanding what these things mean is like asserting identity, like reassuring someone that you are of his or her tribe. And in dropping these references into conversation, I am saying to people, 'I am a Canberran, I went to Telopea and Bundah, I did the IB, I grew up in the inner south, I am a Sydneysider, I live in the eastern suburbs but hang out mainly in the inner west, I watched (and watch) the ABC, I am a middle-class social-democratic Australian, I read books - and you are one of those people too, aren't you?'

And although I've got other groups over here with which I can express solidarity - believe me, I can speak fluent ASNaC, sraffese and obernettian - I still feel a slight sense of loss when I mention Antony Green and people look at me blankly, or when I cringe at the thought of Alexander Downer and people don't know why, or when I go into reveries about the standard Sydney cafe: competent baristas, toasted banana bread (and I don't even like bananas) and egg and bacon rolls.

I don't know if this feeling will ever go away. I tend to reflect on this sort of thing a lot, so I suspect not.

Is it any wonder I write about exile?


( The other days )

( Angst and self-reflection )

Far from my home/ is the country I have reached

Day 28 – Something that you miss
I ended up taking a longer break from internetting than I'd initially planned, mainly due to being insanely busy the entire time I was in Australia. Because I was only there for such a short period of time, every waking moment that I wasn't at the conference or the wedding was spent catching up with various friends and relatives. I had a wonderful time, but I was kind of busy.

Anyway, appropriately, this post is about what I miss. I'm feeling desperately homesick at the moment. It was worse than when I left Sydney in January. I actually walked sobbing through Sydney Airport, which was kind of embarrassing. At the most bizarre moments, I'll find myself feeling absolutely wretched with anguish about how much I miss everyone back in Australia. I haven't really felt this homesick since 2008, and it's kind of surprising.

So, yeah. I miss Australia. It's weird, as I am completely, utterly, perfectly happy in Cambridge. As anya_1984 mentioned to me when I had dinner with her and jonjonc a couple of weeks ago, 'you seem to have found yourself, Ronni. You're so much happier than any other time I've known you.' Considering we've been friends for more than 13 years, I would be inclined to agree. I feel like I am myself, utterly and completely, here, in a way that I had not been in Australia since I went to school at age five.

I don't miss the person that I was in any way. I ranged between depression and neutrality (interspersed with rare moments of delirious happiness), I treated my friends not as well as I should have, and I always felt as if my life lacked in some way. But I do miss the little things. I've spoken about this before.

Mostly, what I miss is the sense of having common cultural references. Being Australian, it's not horrifically bad, since so much of Australian culture draws on USian and British culture anyway. But I miss being able to refer to specifically Australian cultural points of reference (ABC Kids shows, well-known Australian newsreaders and journalists, ads, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne suburbs, 'going down the South Coast', The Chaser, Spicks and Specks, the Sydney fireworks, etc etc etc) and being sure of the immediate understanding of my interlocutors.

We use things like this as markers of solidarity. They are the equivalent of asking 'you know?' at the end of every sentence. Understanding what these things mean is like asserting identity, like reassuring someone that you are of his or her tribe. And in dropping these references into conversation, I am saying to people, 'I am a Canberran, I went to Telopea and Bundah, I did the IB, I grew up in the inner south, I am a Sydneysider, I live in the eastern suburbs but hang out mainly in the inner west, I watched (and watch) the ABC, I am a middle-class social-democratic Australian, I read books - and you are one of those people too, aren't you?'

And although I've got other groups over here with which I can express solidarity - believe me, I can speak fluent ASNaC, sraffese and obernettian - I still feel a slight sense of loss when I mention Antony Green and people look at me blankly, or when I cringe at the thought of Alexander Downer and people don't know why, or when I go into reveries about the standard Sydney cafe: competent baristas, toasted banana bread (and I don't even like bananas) and egg and bacon rolls.

I don't know if this feeling will ever go away. I tend to reflect on this sort of thing a lot, so I suspect not.

Is it any wonder I write about exile?


( The other days )

( Angst and self-reflection )