I try

Central Station, on the way to Chatswood, Nth Sydney

I try not to say, I wish I were back in Sydney because I know it's not about where I am but who I am that matters. Occasionally though, my heart catches in my throat and I feel what I do not say to people.

I try not to go, oh we have that in Sydney and it's really good because I don't want to be one of those people who romanticise foreign lands, claiming ownership as part of an unrealistic fantasy. I'd like to think I'm pretty grounded. Today though, I caught myself saying, Back home instead of Back in Sydney like I meant. What did I mean?

I try not to think thoughts like how much more positive I felt in that beautiful city because I don't live there and there is something about impermanence that casts an extra glow across memories in the human mind. But I recall the words of the cab driver who took me to the airport on my last day when I told him that I would miss Sydney. He said, It is a beautiful city. I believe him.

I try not to feel sad that I am here and not there because this is home and I love it here in many ways; I love the people I love. Yet, as I read Gen's entry, the tears just came.

I try not to get lost in the drumming that goes on everywhere, in everything but I'm afraid that what I found will inexorably slip away. It sounds like a silly melodramatic thought as I'm writing it out but still. So every morning, I wake up early and I have breakfast the way I remember having breakfast back then. I read my Bible in my room, imagining myself next to Gen at the table with our coffees, reading together though we never really did when I was there. And I savour these moments.

To every thing there is a season and one season has passed. And what a season it was.

You know when you've found it,
There's something I've learned
'Cause you feel it when they take it away
(Amie, Damien Rice)