Something's been gnawing at me for weeks, nibbles and nips at first, until a couple of hours and a flight ago I found myself sitting in Canberra Airport anxiously chewing a hole in my lip. I'm flying back to Perth for the first time since I left 10 days and 7 months ago and the order of my comings and goings reversed; apparently I'm having some difficulty with that.
Of course, a Perth trip means Perth music. It seems like my decision to throw on Ian Kenny's side-project brought it to my attention.
Musical accompaniment: Birds of Tokyo - Circles
I've been looking forward to this trip for a while, since booking it in August, after finding out that Ricky would be handing in the last assignment for her Bachelor of Commerce the day before her birthday in July, after being interviewed as the Subject Matter Expert by the Project group in her Entrepreneurship unit, after feeding in hints and tips from my MBA-studies, all the way back to making encouraging, supportive noises all those years ago when she turned around one day and told me her employer would pay for a chunk of it.
"But I'm not smart enough to go to uni!"
"Of course you are! Bunch of us did, and we were kids at the time. You're all grown up'n shit. You'll slay it."
"But..."
"I like big butts, but I don't see how that's relevant. That said, go get your dumbfuck-bogan arse enrolled!"
OK, perhaps it was less sweary than that... no, that can't be right. Differently sweary? It was a long time ago. Long before I started encouraging her to see if her Public Service job would move her over to Canberra, which in turn was quite some time before I decided to move back here myself.
Going back for the "End of Uni/Birthday" Party was a no-brainer, and I've squeezed a lot of meetings and appointments into the next 10 days. It promises to be a good trip.
I've really not been looking forward to this fucking trip. I didn't want to book myself as Unavailable in the work calendar. I really didn't want to organise a cat-sitter, or pack my bag, or go to the airport. I want to be sitting on my balcony which, for all the noise of the traffic and Emergency Vehicle sirens only gets mostly drowned out by the music blaring from my headphones, is... quiet. The thing I get paid to do has been more than chaotic enough, let alone what I carry around between my ears. Every day, whether literally or metaphorically, closing the door to my flat means I don't just get to block out the former, I get to sit above and look down on it, process and understand the latter, push music into my brain and flush the contents out through my fingers.
Going back out into the world again means leaving my ivory tower; I'm not sure which is worse.
Sitting in the Departure Lounge, it also occurred to me that I pissed off, or at least slighted, a bunch of people when I left. What if I run into them? No, I don't anticipate torches and pitchforks at the airport. No, I don't think they actually care, or even noticed. As I told faux-Bosslady the other day, "Never tell me not to be paranoid, paranoia is what keeps me and the people around me safe, because paranoia is what keeps me vigilant and the angles covered. And don't say what you're thinking, just don't. The least trustworthy thing that can come out of your mouth right now is 'you can trust me,' so don't say it." Running into someone I de-friended out of a sense of betrayal is an awkwardness I'd much rather not have to deal with, so I'd better make sure if I do I have some cutting one-liners ready to seal the deal and turn antipathy into actual animosity, right? It's much easier to avoid awkward conversations when they won't speak to you in the first place.
That's a sane, sensible approach that any rationally well-adjusted grown up would take, right?
Even in the absence of angry mobs, Perth is full of ghosts and echoes, and several hours later sitting in this cramped seat half-watching Sisu on the guy in the middle-seat's iPad, I'm realising just how little I want to go there. I'm an hour away from landing and I already want to leave, but perhaps that's just anxiety talking. I'd say something about rolling the dice and seeing if I feel better about things when I'm on the ground, but my Mother's picking me up from the airport, so those dice are more loaded than a Program Manager's schedule.
I will, of course, stop complaining, politely ask the lovely Qantas hosties if I could trouble them for a straw, and suck it up. Whatever doesn't kill me just makes me more annoyed and cynical, after all, and will probably give me plenty to write about.
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