Dreading the home front

Trying hard to extend my stay in Thailand past the 13th, but to no avail. As of this moment, I am home bound in about a week.

Who would've thought I could be this sentimental about leaving Dhaka? My feelings towards this country is one of conflict, ambivalence, and nothing short of complexity that would take far too many words to articulate. But I must leave for the time being. Permanently? That's also another impending option for me.

Going home. Vancouver. I'm always faced with this sense of dread when the time is approaching. It's a combination of bitter/sweet, love/hate, happy/sad. Sure, I'm eager to eat sushi and rollerblade around the sea wall. Have dim sum with my parents and spend a total of 24 hours with them. Certain old faces, re-living nostalgia and pretending like when we were young.

But I've lived a thousand lifetimes since now and then. I see everything in a different light, and probably not all good. I'm so much more distorted because of reality and my thought process is tainted, jaded, and altered because of this time apart. Dont' get me wrong -- I don't think I'm better or worse. It's just harder with every flight away to come back to the little town, to the old life that I don't have and the person I am not anymore.

Anyways, it's hard to articulate this to somebody who's, say, never even left Vancouver in the past few years. Never mind moving and working in Bangladesh or Turkey or god knows where. It'll be an uncomfortable 5 weeks at home. Luckily, I have a nearly-free pass, so maybe I'll just hop on a plane again if it becomes too unbearable!