coming home to me

As I write these sentences Ella Fitzgerald’s deep voice is filling my ears and I am watching planes take off from a large window by the table I’m sat in. I imagine all the people sat in the window seats, watching Milan slowly become smaller and smaller, while anxiously anticipating the moment of coming home to their lover. The moment that makes all the stress worthwhile. Now I imagine myself in the same seat 2 hours from now. It’s quite a tricky one when the feeling of home does not lie within a physical place or a person. When that warm feeling does not fully surround you once you enter through the door and are greeted with your mother’s smile and that smell of nourishing food from your childhood. Late nights at your local bar surrounded by the happy chatters of your best friends do not fill you with joy all around. You’re constantly thinking of when to leave. Seeing someone that used to make you the happiest triggers more anxiety in you than the old feeling of bliss. You want to get away. Fly away. Run away. But life isn’t always spontaneous, and I can’t buy a one-way ticket to Norway. As the loud voice of the announcement abruptly calls me to go to the gate, I say to myself: You don’t get over things by avoiding them.

I take one final sip of the icy water in front of me, get ready, because I’m coming home to me.