Tourist in a Familiar Land

I have an opportunity this week that few who have moved so recently do: going back to Old Home for business.

It’s odd, because it’s the first time since I relocated to New Home that I have had the opportunity to return on business: not as a visiting family member, not as a tourist, but as an outsider. For example, it’s the only time that I’ve been at a rental car place and been able to say “No, I don’t need a map. I know my way around.”

The day was a sort of surreal experience as it involved driving through most of the last 10 years of my life – and even farther back in some cases, as I am staying less than a mile away from where I got my graduate degree and am auditing in a town I lived in for a year.

On the one hand it gives one a critical eye, as you can look at things outside of being involved in them. Changes to the landscape are subtle but there: a building torn down, a building put up, a road rerouted, cars from renters parked outside the house that used to be yours.

On the other hand, it gives one a sense of loss because you are passing through the landscape, not staying in it. My prior visits have been to visit family or move; there was a sense of becoming part of what I was seeing. This time I am truly a tourist with a little visiting thrown it: I’ll go do my audits and fly home.

Does it make sad overall about the move? I don’t think so – our financial position is inestimably better than it was a year ago, even with forfeiting the house and (in a lot of ways) financially having to start over. In other ways I feel like I’ve grown in the past 8 months, going down new paths which are only now becoming heightened in my consciousness. Also, having to move throws you squarely back on your family, both for the good and the bad, raising the awareness of strengths as well as presenting weaknesses in a way that they can be no longer ignored.

So I will go do my audit today, have a fabulous dinner with Songbird and Le Quebecois, audit tomorrow and fly home with my heart, if not fully content, at least with peace with where I am.