Heading Back Home

As I write this, the Sporty Family is preparing for our road trip to Sydney, and then on to the Far North Coast of New South Wales….Where I grew-up.

Part of me loves going home. I just love spending time with my family and I love the more laid-back life-style. The kids get to run around barefoot with their cousins and spend all day in the neighbors swimming pool. We go to the stunningly beautiful rainforests and the deserted beaches that stretch on and on for kilometers. My children  get to experience what it was like for me growing up.

Maybe it’s the humidity or the warmer, more tropical climate, but the sky looks different, the air feels different. You can hear the buzzing of the cicadas, the croaking of the frogs cane toads and the cars revving up the street. You can smell the Christmas beetles in the breeze, the mangos ripening on the trees and the unmistakable sent of the meat works burning off the cow hides……home.

But there is one mostly psychological reason that I don’t like going back to my childhood home. When I was at high school I had big dreams. I wanted to change the world, cure cancer. I wanted to be successful….rich and famous, and a Nobel prize was on the to-do list  too! I would fantasise abut driving down the main street in a red convertible to demonstrate just how successful I’d become…I wonder if anyone else has dreamed of doing the dame thing.

The reality is, as always, in stark contrast to my fantasy world. Although I have achieved my aim of completing a PhD in medical research, I haven’t quite cured cancer. I have also made the choice to give up my career and be a SAHM for my three children. I have been out of the work force for almost 9 years. Now that my youngest is approaching school age, I have been thinking about returning to work. But after being away from science for that long I’m not sure if I could or want to go back.

I have also given away my music, which was such a large part of my life at school.

In short, when I return back home I almost feel like a failure.

 I am again, that girl at school who was dared to eat Perkins Paste…and did!. Items on my to-do list now include shopping, cleaning, and bathing. Somehow the jobs of playgroup coordinator, unpaid neighborhood music teacher and speech therapist , taxi driver, cleaner and cook are not really worth mentioning when I run into an old class mates and I am asked the inevitable question…

“…so what are you doing now??…”

Another reason for my hesitation in going back to my home town is a little ironic. You see, at high school I just couldn’t wait to get away from that place. But now, when I am back in my new home city I find myself lonely, lost and longing for my family back in my old home town. I feel in a ‘funk’ for several weeks as I get used to being on my own again. I wonder what the ‘high-school me’ would think about that??

I have heard it said, I think from a movie, that…

“…When you go back to a place that remains unchanged you find out how much you yourself have changed….”

I think that this statement sums up how I feel, because I have changed. I am no longer the self obsessed high school kid I once was full of idealistic dreams to change the world. I now have my children. My priorities have changed and I will now do whatever I can to help them realize their dreams.

I can’t help feeling though that I have too easily given my dreams away…..

I’m wondering if there are any other mums who feel a little like that??

....And, because It's Tuesday, I'm linking up with Jess from Diary Of A SAHM for #IBOT. Come over and have a look at all the wonderful posts!