For most of us Christmas is a family affair, is the time of the year when everyone is going home (wherever that may be...).
I had planned carefully this year to go home for Christmas, took time off from work for a reasonable amount of time, meant to spend Christmas with the family at friend's villa in the mountains and had planned this major party for my 30th Birthday on the 30th of December. It's been months I have been thinking about it and the closer it got to the moment of actually going to Romania, I realized I didn't have a Christmas turkey dinner this year and still missed on the nice cosy pub nights with friends for having working so long hours during December and by leaving, I was leaving behing a lot of "unfinished" businesses and many friends I hadn't seen in a very long time with whom I didn't manage to catch up and wish Merry Christmas to.
Something was still missing when I left the house to go to Gatwick and catch my flight. Deep in my thoughts I completely forgot that London's been snowy these days and major delays were bound to happen. As probably predicted, I had problems with getting to Gatwick and when I thought it was all just a matter of time before getting to Bucharest, I had the surprise of finding out that, 3 hours later after boarding the plane, our flight got cancelled due to adverse weather conditions.
Somehow it's happening every year. For 10 minutes of snow, several flights got cancelled and many others delayed. After a painful wait for luaggage, explanations from the airline, train and bus, I finally got back to my London home at 11 pm, after being away for 12 hours. I called the Customers Services Line next day and only got an alternative flight on the 26th. Funny enough, other people I know managed to fly out yesterday and today by flying either different airline or from a different airport. It seems that I wasn't meant to go home this year.
It seems that home isn't home anymore. From this year on, London is my home and funny enough I am actually quite glad I got to spend Christmas here together with all the other expats that don't have a family here nor they are going home for the holidays. I am being posessed by a very weird feeling: do I even want to go home anymore?... I wish I can just bring my mum here to be with me and have friends visiting as I am really tired of going home and trying to recover a feeling that is long lost and to realize every time that life just goes on on both sides and that there is less and less tieing me to my own place of birth. I started to love being in London, the specific Christmas atmosphere on the streets, in the pubs, in the shops, anywhere, the food, and don't even miss the Romanian food nor anything else for that matter...
I know it's not nice to say it, but I kind of felt relieved that I don't have to go home this time. I am enjoying the days off, my own company or the friends that are still around and planning for the New Year. I do miss my friends back home too, but I seem to be in the impossible situation of combining both worlds...
I am not sure yet, but my whole trip to Romania might just be cancelled... I am still debating it with myself and even though my 30th Bday is just a few days away, this time I don't even care. It's just another day and most importantly I am happy enough as not to put all the pressure on a simple day when I happened to be born 30 years ago. I can make each day a celebration of the fact that I was born and that I am alive...
