Solitary sojourns of my mind

Earlier today, while lying on my bed listening to the strains of Pascale Picard’s Gate 22 on the radio and watching a trio of flies who had found their way in through my open window and were lazily buzzing through the hot air in a rectangular pattern a few inches below my ceiling, I began thinking about my destiny.  Erm, actually just the next two weeks of my life, to be more honest.

You see, one of the downsides to being one of those TCK people is that when you get older and you go ‘home’ for vacation to where your parents live… well you feel about as at home as a penguin would in Cairo.  When you live away from your parents, especially after several years, you build your own life around your location, with a specific group of friends and you participate in certain activities that are available (whether it’s drinking vodka with Russian farmers, moose-tipping in Canada or llama chasing in Peru – remember, I didn’t specify a location).  Now admittedly I’m in a little bit of a transition period at the moment, but my problem is that because I’ve never lived here, I don’t know a soul here.

Being in a small and slightly remote village (American readers, this is equivalent to what you would call the boonies in the US – think Crawford, Texas, but less famous, or the sticks to any UK readers; other readers… think small village, population around the few hundred mark, with no big towns nearby and no public transport), there aren’t even any other people around my age.  They seem to follow a strict reproduction cycle here with everyone at the same point.  They all have kids around their late 20’s or early 30’s, with that having happened about 5 years ago.  In other words, you have kids who are around 5, parents around 35 and grandparents around 70.  Oh yeah, and then there’s me.

It’s even worse in Geneva, where my parents spend half of their time, because I don’t have the age excuse.  Having never lived there either and visiting Geneva at highly irregular intervals, I’ve never been able to be involved in activites through which I could meet other people and, even if I had, I’m not there often enough to keep up a friendship.  Why don’t I go and travel you ask?  I’d love to – in fact, I’m going to at the beginning of September; 12 days in Hungary.  But more than that, I just can’t afford.

Between swatting away the slowly descending flies and the above musings, I got to wondering if I’m ungrateful.  I’m spending a month with my parents, all expenses paid.  There are plenty of people who would like to spend their holidays in the south of France or in Geneva, and yet I find it difficult to enjoy it, despite the weather, the nature and the beautiful scenery.  It’s just the lengthy, lazy days interspersed by mealtimes, day after day, which make me feel a little like Michael Phelps, just without 30 hours of swimming per week.  One thing I do know though is that if I continue moving (which I certainly plan on doing) then when I have kids of my own (also in the plans, just not for a while – a long while), this issue would be a concern and something I would try to avoid.  A couple of weeks ago I met a girl, through an aquaintance, who’s parents have also lived in Geneva for the last 7 years, but in all that time she’s been in the UK.  She has the same problem as me (she doesn’t know anyone in Geneva), so I’m happy to say it’s not just me.  Well I say happy, it’s not like I’m ecstatic about it, but at least I’m not the only one in this situation.

My conclusion, which I had to come to rather hastily – hence the slightly depressing viewpoint - is that at the moment I’m a bit like one of the flies above my head.  I’m just ambling around, waiting patiently for something to happen.  I’m stagnating, kind of like the water in one of those plastic pools for kids if you leave it outside in the sun for a week without chlorine.  All I can do is sit and wait for the next two weeks – wait to embark on my foray into the Hungarian lifestyle and then to return to England for a final 5 months.  I feel guilty when I say this, because next year I’ll supposedly be joining the adult workforce for good, so this is in all probability my last real summer holiday.  And all I can do is look forward to next year, when I’ll have an engineering degree and finally be truly independent.

Incidentally, if anyone knows why flies sometimes fly slowly in shapes in a room, I’d be interested to hear an explanation.  Wouldn’t it be less tiresome to just sit and wait??