Emotional Baggage

I tend not to make resolutions in the lead up to a new year. Instead I prefer to peruse the big picture stuff (bps). The life changing variety is my usual preference.

This year I made the decision to live more creatively and move from Cambodia to India with a detour via Australia, my home of many years prior to Phnom Penh.

I also made one exception to the bps and set myself a daily goal. At the urging of robharris35 who was and continues to be inspired by bananablip, I too decided to sign up for Blippin' good fun from New Year's Day.

So then back to the move. Why leave Cambodia, a place I have grown to love? Because I was fortunate to achieve all that I came to do and much more. Because a wonderful life like that can also run the risk of sucking you into a privileged expat bubble far removed from the truth of many of the country's and its peoples' own, very different reality.

Because with all the many great things I experienced, I also contracted dengue fever twice as well as septicaemia and was nearly med' evac'ed fo Bangkok and got a tropical infection that closed my eye. I was robbed walking along my street one night, thrown off my bike a couple of times by an errant motorbike and landed on my head and arm, sustaining hairline fractures. These were temporary setbacks and none of them dented my enthusiasm for long or my appreciation of the goodness I've discovered in Cambodia. What I did however, start to long for is more time with my family and to be immersed in nature which in Phnom Penh is only possible by driving out of town for a couple of hours. I started to miss daily walks and being for so long in an endless tropical summer, I dreamt of the cool crisp air of changing seasons and the colours of trees in autumn.

I booked a ticket in mid-December and went through the monumental task of packing up my life and saying farewell to the incredible people who have enveloped me into their nurturing friendships.

On the morning of the 16th (yesterday) my former colleague Vy took half a day off work and came to pick me up. He took me out to lunch and then to the airport and stayed with me for all the hours of check in right until I stepped onto the escalator to go up to Cambodian Customs at Phnom Penh International Airport.

This is it I thought. I'm really leaving ... and with a heavy heart I dragged myself up along with my equally heavy overflowing baggage.

Sok sabay Cambodia. Be well.

I am headed back to my 'real' home I told myself in the departure lounge and started to mentally prepare myself for the transition to a different world and a whole other way of being and communicating. There are many good things about Australia, but in the way most western societies function, people tend to be more reserved, less spontaneous and systems are over-regulated and somewhat inflexible. Smiling at strangers can arouse suspicion, bafflement rather than delight.

So as if to prove me wrong and a reminder to always remain hopeful and keep looking at the bps, when I was struggling with my bags inflight, a friendly Australian passenger called Raymond helped me. During our long transit in Kuala Lumpur, Raymond, his son and friend who were coming home after biking around Viet Nam and I sat together and talked about the wonders of travelling.

On arrival in Sydney, the airport officer at the Immigration queue wanted to ask me about where I'd been and what I liked about it. He had just returned to live in Australia after many years in his original home country Croatia. Others in the queue behind me got restless so I stepped aside to allow them to go ahead. I missed my spot.

Going further through Customs, the official inspecting my luggage and documents, wanted to chat about the work I'd undertaken in Cambodia and why. I stood there for so long that I nearly missed my bus to Canberra, my final destination.

I got out of the terminal and raced over to the Greyhound bus stand without a ticket, just a couple of minutes before the bus was due to leave. The driver broke the company rule and said I could buy a ticket directly from him rather than go online or wait for the next service a few hours later as long as I didn't tell the head office.

On the bus I borrowed a phone from a passenger called Geoff so I could let my family know that I had made it and would see them in a few hours. Geoff who had quit his job in the Australian Government Public Service to become a roving consultant wanted to compare notes about global living on the 300km drive between Sydney and Canberra.

As we chatted for a while, I caught glimpses behind him of the vast expanse of brilliant blue skies, the sunburnt and parched plains turned yellow, rolling hills and wind farms, sheep and horses.

Has Australia changed? Have I changed? Was I simply lucky? Any way it goes, thank you for a warm welcome home.

Bps.