New year's blues

First post of the year. Second and last post that I will be writing while in my hometown. In three days I will be coming back to the US. I am strongly looking forward to it.

I started reading Tokyo Blues by Haruki Murakami three days ago and I am about to finish it. I can’t stop reading it. I only have fifty pages or so to go so I still don’t know how it finishes. So far, at certain points, I have felt somehow identified with Watanabe, the main character. I wouldn’t know how to explain it, though. It may have been my memories from my trip to Tokyo a year ago, or the references to Scott Fitzgerald or to the Catcher in the Rye, or maybe to The Beatles or to the communication (the lack thereof, to be more precise) feelings stated in the book. Or maybe all of them together.

Despite what I wrote about in the previous post, the very last days have been weird. The feelings of extreme joy and happiness that I had a few days ago for coming back have almost vanished and I want, I need in fact, to come back to NY.

It would be unfair on my side to say that I’m disappointed with the days spent in my hometown but I guess that when you are about to come back to the place where you belong you expect that everything is going to be great fun and awesome with your family and friends. That’s how I felt a few days ago. However, now that the first days are gone, I can’t help feeling misplaced. Here I am, on holidays, without much to do and just for a few days. I’ll be leaving soon and I don’t know when I will be coming back. I’m somehow waiting for a call from somebody to go for a coffee or so but nobody calls. On the flipside, however, I am unable to pick up the phone a give a ring to anybody. I feel like I am new in town. In my own town. I have realized – although it’s pretty obvious, I guess – that my people keep going on with their lives and I must understand it. I can’t expect them to change their routines just because I’m here. It’s a reasonable thing although I’d probably like it to be in a different way. Now I have a bittersweet feeling inside about this trip.

Although, as I said before, there are still three days left before I leave, I have almost finished packing my stuff. It’s an evident sign. Furthermore, receiving emails from my friends from NY or from the people that are arriving to Stern within an exchange program, following up with my networking contacts, or checking the weather forecast for NY allow me to feel like I’m back to my routine. And at that point I feel better.
It’s a little gloomy post and I guess that the trip hop music I’m listening to right now doesn’t help much. But I wanted to record how I’m feeling these days. Honestly, I never thought it’d have happened. But it’s probably good to have my feet on the ground. Or maybe not….who knows?

Ciao