Well, I haven’t written much here since saying I was going to start blogging again, have I? Certainly nothing about China. But I’m not going to force it. I’ve had pain issues, and I’ve been writing a lot for my TCK blog, especially in preparation for three weeks overseas (we leave in two and a half days, and I’ve at least started packing!)

Speaking of my TCK blog, I’ve noticed that recently I’ve written several drafts on cross-cultural life that are more personal in nature, more emotional in style. I think the decision to make writing my outlet again somehow overflowed naturally into what I’m writing for my ‘work’ blog.

Most of what I’ve written in this vein still need to be polished before being published. But one piece went up this week – a post about my difficult experiences of going home. I touch on the difficulty of repatriation (returning to your passport country after an extended time living elsewhere), which is an emotional rollercoaster I’ve been through twice. But the focus of the piece is my reflections on returning to Beijing as a visitor after I moved to Australia. Here’s a quote from the piece:

“I had grieved leaving Beijing two years earlier. So I thought. In hindsight, I think I did a good job of grieving the people I was leaving, and the life I was leaving, but I didn’t grieve the PLACE in the same way. Upon my return, all those connections to place were still there, waiting to come to life, to shower me in grief – the recognition that I had left the place that felt like mine.”

Read the full post here: My difficult experiences of going home

Funny. I think I said goodbye to Beijing four years ago better than I’ve said hello to it this year! But perhaps that’s a reflection best left for another day…