Chasing Amy-Lou

On a plane, always leaving…always leaving you…

When I began writing this, the final blog in the last chapter of my most recent adventure, I struggled to be able to put my feelings into words. When it came to writing about the last couple of days in South East Asia and essentially the end of my 13 month journey I was confused. I’d had such a wonderful time, not just in Bali, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, but in Australia too and the time to return home had come around so quickly that I hadn’t really had time to think about or process it.

So this is my attempt to do just that. Bear with me, it could be a lengthy one…

As I sat on a plane from Kuala Lumpur, bound for London Heathrow, I tried with all my might to put pen to paper and explain the way I was feeling. It was hard. And even now, two weeks later, it still is hard. And it’s hard because I’m still so confused. About everything.

I was sat in row 47 on a huge Malaysian Airways plane. There was free booze and endless amounts of food on offer, and the inflight entertainment was pretty decent. I had 13 hours to kick back and relax. But it was also 13 hours (that without Valium or some other type of highly addictive benzo sleeping pill) in which my brain would have time to think. In overdrive. And that’s sometimes a dangerous thing.

To the left of me in the middle of the plane, on row 46, sat four Australian pensioners. The plane had been delayed a while on the runway and there’d been a problem with the TVs and the inflight entertainment menus. I could tell the four friends had been trying to watch a film or listen to some music or something, but as we took off and floated above the clouds, the signal kept cutting out, preventing them from being able to watch anything at all. The rapturous laughter and jokey conversations that came from the four of them was hilarious; they were all looking at each other trying to work out the controls, they were giggling when the TVs kept cutting out, and as I listened with a smile on my face, hearing their distinct Aussie accents, reminiscing about a great country I’d spent such a long time in, I couldn’t help but feel all nostalgic. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I began to cry. The tears rolled down my face, staining my cheeks and leaving traces of mascara under my eyes; and I tried to suppress my pathetic sobs but I couldn’t. My emotions were finally surfacing and I realised something I’d kind of known all along, something I’d sort of known since I left Broome back in the middle of June. I hadn’t been ready to leave Australia. I still wasn’t ready to leave Australia. And despite the last two months travelling around SE Asia being everything and more than I could’ve dreamed, I knew, in my heart, that I wanted to go back to the land down under. I had unfinished business in Oz, and as I continued to listen to the Aussies in front of me, loving hearing their jeers and camaraderie, my tears came strong and fast. I could not stop crying. I couldn’t. All the emotions I’d contended with since June were now pouring out of me…on a plane miles above sea level. I couldn’t phone anyone. I couldn’t message anyone. So I did the only thing I knew would be of any help in this situation – I rang for the flight attendant and ordered wine. Lots of wine.

I didn’t think I’d feel the way I did on that flight at all. The last couple of weeks in Bali had been the pièce de résistance of my trip. I’d loved it. I’d contended with emotions and I’d overcome negative feelings, I’d settled my mind using yoga and healing…but as I sat on that plane, I knew I wasn’t ready to go home. I thought I had been ready – I certainly had a lot planned for once I was back and settled in Blighty, and I was looking forward to seeing my family and friends again but I couldn’t shake that feeling of emptiness; it was as if there was a hollow ball growing ever bigger inside of my heart. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel but it kept flicking on and off, as if there were a break in the circuit. I had that dreaded feeling of “what now?” What do I do now? What do I do about the life I left behind in Australia? What do I do about the people I’d left there? The love I’d left? Those whom I didn’t want to leave behind? What would happen now? How was I supposed to deal with this? It was as if I were experiencing severe separation anxiety. And I didn’t want to feel like that. I needed to block out the pain. I needed more wine.

Halfway through the flight I got up to go and chat to the Aussies. Other than getting pissed at a high altitude (which was going quite well by hour six of the flight) I had to do something else, I had to go and talk to someone to let these emotions out and to provide myself with some light relief. Explaining my situation and telling the lovely people why I was approaching them, they listened with intent. They even offered me tissues and a seat while I poured my heart out. It was as if I were offloading all my problems. And it felt nice. It felt like I’d known them forever. They reminded me of the grandparents of friends I had in Orange, NSW. And I wanted to cling onto them like a pathetic little puppy clings to its owner. I felt relieved to have let my emotions out but I still felt confused. What did I actually want? Did I want to go home or did I want to go back to Australia? I knew what it was I longed for, eventually, (a soul mate, marriage, kids, a decent career), but was it supposed to be in the Northern, or the Southern Hemisphere? And would my decisions be based upon love, or rationality?

Thinking that the rush of sadness and confusion was just a natural reaction to the end of my trip – a reaction that was to be expected now that everything seemed so final; and accepting the fact that I was going to feel sad for a long time, I thanked the Aussies and returned to my seat with a business card from Coral and her husband Chris (who told me that I should contact them if I was to return to Australia), and ordered more wine, a gin and tonic, and then more wine. After a while I fell asleep which was probably a good thing considering mixing wine and gin is a lethal combination at any time, let alone at miles above sea level.

Anyway, the plane soared on and eventually we reached European shores. It wouldn’t be long before I landed in London, and the long slog home, back to the North-West, back to Preston, would begin. I floated in and out of REM, my aisle seat a Godsend because it meant I could stretch my legs out instead of being cramped in the middle or against the window, causing me to fidget something worse than a nine year old with supposed ADHD, a refusal to stop eating smarties and an avoidance of Ritalin tablets. I watched a film. I finished a book. I took walks up and down the aisles, performing basic yoga stretches near the exits in order to relieve my stiff limbs; I found the stairs to the upper deck of the giant plane and wavered at the bottom, too afraid to ascend in case I got reprimanded by a pissed-off flight attendant; I saw unattended cabin carts and was tempted to steal the snacks from the shelves; and I returned to my seat after failing to exert my anxious energy and ordered more wine. Always more wine.

By the time we’d crossed the English Channel my thoughts had calmed down somewhat and the feelings of sadness had been slightly overcome. I’d accepted I was almost back on my native shores and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t exactly turn the plane around and demand to go back to Australia – being branded a terrorist and/or threatened with mental health sectioning wasn’t something I particularly wanted to happen – so I took the advice I’d been given from someone special (someone I’d left behind in Australia, the only person I really hadn’t wanted to leave) and decided I just needed to deal with the situation. I couldn’t change it so I had to go with it. I wasn’t ready for what lay ahead but I had to prepare myself for it, I had to be ready.

Landing in London was weird. Really weird. I was used to landing in Manchester – almost every flight I’d taken over the last ten years had ended with an arrival in the North-West of England. But arriving in London was strange. I had another seven hours before I would be back home – an hour to exit customs and wait for my luggage, an hour on the tube from Heathrow to Euston, two hours to kill before my train, then three hours on the train from London to Preston. It was strange, yet, as I exited the tube and made my way to the nearest pub opposite Euston Station (obviously more wine was in order), it all felt so naturally normal. It felt as if I’d never been away. It felt as if I’d just been visiting London for a few days and was on my way home. It felt wrong.

I didn’t want to feel like I’d never been away. I didn’t want to just fit back into the monotony of everyday British life so easily. I couldn’t, for I was scared I’d forget, forget the life I’d left behind. For the last 13 months I’d been living a different life, and despite some struggles, the last few months, from March to June, I’d loved it; it had been normal to me, it had been MY life. I couldn’t just push that aside. I couldn’t just forget the people and the places and the feelings. But being back home, on British soil, I could already feel it slipping away. And it hurt my heart. It tightened it and squeezed it and crushed it, and it wrenched it. And it frightened me. And I couldn’t manage to get it beating again, not in the same way it had done while I’d been in Australia. I felt like my heart had been broken in two – half of it was with me, the other half on the West Coast of Australia. And I didn’t know what to do.

Sinking another two glasses of Sauv Blanc, then purchasing the biggest chocolate bar a could find, I boarded the Virgin Pendolino train to my hometown. One of my closest friends would be waiting for me at the station, and I was beginning to grow very tired. I’d been in transit since 11am Thursday morning, and it would be midnight Friday by the time I arrived home – a whole 37 hours of planes, trains and automobiles.

(I was due to stay at my friends house that night and would be surprising my mum with my arrival the following morning. She had no idea I was coming home and she’d probably cry and get all flustered (just so you know, that’s exactly what she did). I’d also be surprising my dad too – it was his 60th birthday the following week, and my brother and sister-in-law had organised a surprise party for him on the Saturday evening. And it was my intention to be there. So not only would he be getting a surprise when he saw the guests, he’d be getting double the surprise when he saw me. And it went swimmingly. More than swimmingly)

However, I digress slightly, and harking back to the train journey, I struggled, and so just like on the flight, I tried to drift in and out of sleep as the train trundled on; through Rugby and Crewe, Warrington Bank Quay and Wigan, and finally, as it pulled in to Preston, despite my semi-emotional breakdown on the plane, and despite still feeling confused, still unsure of where I wanted to be, I felt kind of ready. I felt ready to begin the next chapter of my life. Don’t get me wrong, despite being ‘ready’, I was still unsure of the path my life would take, and I was basing a lot of my direction and decisions in life on this ‘love’…on this unrequited, far-flung ‘love’, this love I’d left behind. However, I needed the feelings to amount to more than a mere ‘wish upon a star’; I needed more than a glance towards Orion. I needed more than that. I needed to know what the next steps would be…because this was no dress rehearsal; the next chapter in my life was to be no game, it had already begun – I’d landed on British soil and the journey had already commenced – but this wasn’t child’s play…this was the real thing.