(or, the mandatory new-year’s-eve pondering post that louis prodded me into writing)

I suppose I could say, what a year it’s been. I suppose a lot has happened, though I feel that often I was stumbling from one route marker to another, amazing race style, with not a clue what would happen next – only with the knowledge that there had to be an end to the leg, and an end to the race. From settling down in London and getting to know it better, to my two weeks in Stratford-upon-Avon working for one of the world’s greatest theatre companies, to the frantic flurry of job-hunting and hopping, to finally landing something, to making it permanent – I can’t do justice to it all in one post – and that’s just work. I haven’t even begun to say anything about meeting new people, rekindling old friendships, eking out the beginnings of a new life, the harrowing feeling of post-university emptiness, the sweetness of summer on the south bank, flying home, talking, thinking, loving, losing, hoping, living.

I suppose I could say, indeed, that 2009 was quite a year. But to be honest, I don’t think the events of the year made all that much of a difference; I think it would still have been quite a year had I not worked where I worked and found the job I did in the end, if I were still jobless now, if summer had been a torrent of rain, if I hadn’t taken that holiday home, if I had taken up, say, cooking classes rather than Japanese. It would all still have been something, it would still have been an experience to remember. And I suppose, too, that this is true not just of 2009 but of any year, any time; had I not done my MA in 2007/08, I would have done something else, and whatever it was, it would have left its indelible mark on my experience of 07/08 too, for better or worse.

One of my colleagues said in the office today, over discussing New Year’s Eve plans (mine was, obviously, the most boring), that he felt 2009 had just kind of drifted along, but that 2010 was going to be the year. I don’t know that I agree with the drifting, but I do feel, for no reason at all I can put my finger on, that I am more than ready for 2009 to be over – because 2010 is going to be, as noted, the year – and it won’t be because of what happens, whatever may happen; it will be simply because I am alive. The world is changing around me, and there is a long road to walk yet, and a lot of life to be lived.

In my 24 years, yesterday was the first Christmas I’d ever spent on my own. I’d always had family or friends around, if not both; and I guess a part of me always took it for granted that it would be the case year on year.

I feared I would be terribly lonely this year, what with London shut down around me, trapped indoors with nowhere to go, no one to talk to. And I’m not going to sugarcoat it all and claim that it wasn’t actually lonely at all, that it was perfectly fine, that at no point did I fleetingly wish someone else was around. But you know – with the texts that I started getting on Christmas Eve, and my mom’s phone call in the morning, and the emails/Facebook messages that trickled in – I didn’t really have all that much time, or inclination, to feel sorry for myself.

I had a blissfully warm lie-in after hanging up with my mom, and after finally (reluctantly) rolling out of bed around 10:30, put on my Spotify Christmas playlist and started the day with “All I Want for Christmas is You”, which is probably still my favourite Christmas song – if only, in large part, thanks to Love Actually. It was cold, but not the frightful, bone-chilling frost of the cold snap that had ravaged England and the continent for the past week; instead it was more of a calm, settled crisp cold. Listening to Mariah, I couldn’t help smiling to myself and singing along as I made my morning coffee. Oh I won’t ask for much this Christmas, I won’t even wish for snow – how true, that.

So the day passed uneventfully and in supremely restful manner. I threw myself gleefully into playing more of Dragon Age (woefully behind many of my friends, I think, because I don’t usually have time or energy to play after work!) and watched The Muppet Christmas Carol for the first time. Christmas movies at Christmastime are something of a tradition; had we all been home together, I would probably have been watching Home Alone 2 with my siblings. But this year we are all scattered across continents: my sister and brother in Singapore, my mom and dad in Sydney and headed to the Blue Mountains for a 3-day outdoorsy walking holiday, and me here in winter with my endless mugs of hot tea and honey.

This morning, I woke late revelling in the fact that I was not caught up in a crazy Boxing Day sale crowd, and put on some unabashedly cheesy 80s pop to twirl round my room to, starting with Bananarama’s “Love in the First Degree”. It’s been a good holiday season, so far. I miss people – but then again, when have I not? And as for being on my own, it was far less devastatingly depressing than I had been led to believe, for the most part. I felt warm, and I felt loved, and what more could I want at Christmastime?

So yesterday afternoon, someone looked up and said, “hey, it’s snowing!”

The few of us in the office flocked round the large balcony window and looked at the few flecks coming down. It was pretty and swirling, but didn’t look like it was going to be disruptive or anything (famous last thoughts).

Fast forward another hour or so, and the snow was pouring down so thick and fast the sky was white. You couldn’t see the blue/grey/sunset/whatever colour it actually was, only a whitewash; the pavements and roofs had disappeared under an ever-thickening layer of fresh snow, and the roads were beginning to pile up. I opened the TfL website and kept it open the rest of the day to keep an eye on the ever-changeable Northern Line; it seemed fine, all the way to closing time.

The cold and the flurries hit me like a hurricane when I opened the door of the building and stepped outside; it was the kind of snowfall that pelts you, where you can feel the wet flakes on your lashes and your lips. I usually walk about 15 minutes to the Tube, but decided it would be madness in this weather and opted to wait for a bus instead in the sheltered bus station, where I bumped into a colleague who’d evidently reached the same conclusion.

We waited, and talked, and waited, and ten minutes later were joined by another colleague. We looked out the windows of the station and realised to our consternation that the vehicles outside hadn’t moved in the entire time we’d been there, at which point we realised that the roads were probably stuck in a horrible gridlock, and that we weren’t about to get anywhere waiting for the bus.

So steeling ourselves, we went back out into the snow to brave the walk to the station. We rang someone who’d left the office a good ten minutes before me to see how far he’d got, and we found out he’d got on a bus but was stuck in traffic not moving. One of my colleagues kindly lent me his umbrella as I’d left mine at home, over-optimistically, and was the only one without hood or hat. The snow went crunch crunch beneath our feet as we fought our way through. All I could think of was how much I didn’t want my socks to get wet, and how surreal this all was.

Then – wouldn’t you know it – after all that, about 2 minutes before we reach the station, colleague K gets a call on her phone which consists of her going “Oh, you are kidding! I’ll pass that on. Can we come and find you?”

And then we find out that C, who left the office before us and had been on the bus, had just arrived at the station only to see the last southbound train go, and find out that the Northern Line from here down to Camden Town had literally just been suspended.

Of all the – !

So we meet up with C, who fills us in further; Tube staff had essentially told him that they weren’t putting on any bus replacement services as the roads were gridlocked, they had no idea when the trains would be up and running again, and their advice was “go wait in the pub for an hour and come back later.”

How very British, I thought, amused despite my frustration, as we did just that and trooped down to the nearest pub for chips and drinks. We were an odd motley crew; we all get along fine, as does everyone in my office pretty much, but we wouldn’t typically be found hanging out with each other. But then there we were, all us South Londoners, trapped in Zone 3 of North London with no conceivable way of getting home that night other than to walk as far south as we possibly could to where we could get to Camden Town (or, heaven forbid, to walk to Camden Town itself, that would have taken a couple of hours). It was warm indoors, and the swirling snow outside in the dark was oddly picturesque, with the white covering car rooftops and pavements. We clinked glasses and wished each other merry Christmas. I looked outside at the still traffic and icy roads, and the surreality of it all hit me again, as I wondered if I would get home at all that night.

One hour later, as advised, we trooped back down to the station, only to find that southbound trains were running at a frequency of one every half-hour to an hour, and station staff were advising everyone to “exit the station and seek alternative routes”. (C: “what alternative routes?!”)

My gloves and socks were damp, K had to roll up her jeans so they wouldn’t get wet on the bottom, and everyone’s coats were dripping, but we resignedly waited it out till the train came. By the time I got home it was nearly three hours after I’d left the office. And throughout all this, the layer of snow on the ground could not possibly have piled up beyond two inches.

Sometimes, London, you really exasperate me. But at least I’m not alone.

if there is one thing my trip home and the past two days have taught me, it is that at the end of the day, the people matter most of all. i could have the best job in the world anywhere (and i do really love my job) and it wouldn’t keep me there if i didn’t have my family or my best friends around too. and what a family, what a group of friends i have. i couldn’t ask for more.

and if there is a second thing i have learned, it is that there is no such thing as the perfect place to be. here, i miss so many things about singapore and sydney, there, i miss things about england. wherever i go, i think, there will always be something or other i miss; fuzzy said to me after tea at coffee club that this feeling of passing through places and always being in transit was probably always going to be a permanent one, and i can’t help but think she was right. ironic, isn’t it, for someone who has been doing nothing but trying to find home for the past four years. maybe the answer i’ve finally found is that there is no home. there are only feelings, feelings of being home, feelings of belonging somewhere, and the people and things and memories that trigger them.

and there is no combination of words i could say

there are so many things i want to express, for which words will never be enough. reading terry pratchett’s nation in tasmania, and then watching it last night at the national theatre, brought that home to me all over again. i feared i would cry at the last scene, instead there were helpless, silent tears in my throat and a choked up dryness in my eyes. how do you put a name to this? how do you say hello, and goodbye, and hope to see you again soon, and i love you, in your own way – without using these words that so many people have used before you, to mean things that they feel, not that you feel? there is only so much i can pour into my christmas cards, into my smiles and gestures, and i don’t know if it is good enough.

It is always the leaving that brings it all into perspective.

It’s so easy to say that the weather in Sydney is too changeable, my house too cold, my brother and his friends too noisy, my mom too naggy, the lack of coffee in the kitchen unacceptable. But then, looking out on the pink-purple-orange sunrise over Sydney Harbour as we crossed the bridge, my backpack and my suitcase in the boot once again and my dad behind the wheel to the airport, I didn’t want to close my eyes for fear I would miss another priceless moment.

Tasmania was beautiful. Having been once more transformed into a city girl by the always-on lights of London, it was eerily quiet at first; even capital city Hobart doesn’t really feel all that much bigger than York, and as we travelled into the mountains and the (comparative) wilderness I was suddenly struck by how rare, how amazing it was that this part of the world, not 2 hours’ flight from Sydney, had managed to remain so pristinely untouched. This was not some urban-generated landscape, this was genuine nature. And after all this time, there are still no better travel companions than my family.

Yesterday as I sat on the old familiar 174 and went by my old neighbourhood en route to Orchard, looking down the street where I grew up, at the condominium which now occupies the place I used to swim, the playground at Bouganvillea Park behind the old bus stop, I almost didn’t know what to feel. There was nostalgia in spades, there was an ache for what is irretrievably gone, there was a warmth and a deeply felt thankfulness for what hasn’t changed at all. My sister, summing up my thoughts, said to me later in the night that she wanted to go back to our house and our neighbourhood, but at the same time she didn’t want to, was almost afraid to, because she knew it’d be different.

Today, I took a walk down Orchard Road from ION to Plaza Singapura, and at least half of what I saw was completely unrecognisable. Change is inevitable, I know, change is to be embraced. But oh, the dizzying vertigo. And yet – I know that when I sit in the airport again on Wednesday morning, another boarding pass in my hand, I will be soaking it all in and wishing I didn’t have to leave, however unfamiliar to me this island now is. There are still the people. There are still the memories.