Leaving New Zealand

I leave New Zealand tomorrow. 

I have been here for 6 months and 2 days (185 days to be exact). I have stayed in 18 hostels (I think), 5 Kiwi homes, one traditional bach, and rented a flat. I have seen waterfalls, mountains, glaciers, lakes, rivers, seas, forests, gardens, birds, dolphins, seals, cockroaches, and thousands of flies. I have been on about 20 bus journeys that I can remember off the top of my head, rented 2 different cars, been on 2 train journeys, and I’ve done the ferry crossing twice. I have been to 12 cities, at least 30 towns, and I have lived on both of the islands. 

Tomorrow at 7:15pm, I will leave New Zealand, and this whole crazy adventure will be almost over. 

And yet, it just doesn’t feel real. 

*

I sat on a bench in the departure lounge on the evening of the 28th of September, and seriously considered calling my Mum and asking her to take me back home. 

I cried on the flight to Manila when the full weight of what I had done hit me: I was going to the other side of the world for 6 months, without any of my family, and with just a backpack on my back (that I wasn’t even sure I could carry). 

I have been crossing off the days from calendars; counting how many I’ve been in New Zealand, and how many left before my flight home. The latter always felt like a mountain, the former like a bump. 

*

I met up with Meryn on my first day back in Auckland, our first time seeing each other in just over 4 months. When we said goodbye in the garage of the farm we had been working on, we thought we’d be seeing each other in 3 weeks. 

“I don’t want to go home and feel like I haven’t made the most of my time here,” she explained, as she laid out her plans for the next year or so. “I’m homesick, but I know I’m not ready to go back yet.”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying. I think that’s the key to it, isn’t it? Knowing when you’re ready,” I replied.

I have daydreamed a lot about home over the last 6 months, but this is the first time I have felt like my heart has been hooked; everything in me is being tugged back to where I am happiest, and I know I would be stupid to ignore it. 

*

We haven’t done much reminiscing of our time here, me and Tom, or me and Meryn when we were together. Meryn and I talked about everything and anything and really, I was just enjoying being back in her company after being so long apart. 

But naturally, conversation turned to what I’ve done since we parted, and I started showing her a couple of my photos from the last few months. 

I was as amazed as Meryn was looking at those photos. I was there? I saw that? It felt too big, too surreal to comprehend. 

*

The last 6 months have been almost unbearably hard. Almost. Almost because I did bear them. Almost because here I am, 6 months later, not quite able to believe I did it. Almost because for the first time in my life, I haven’t given up on something I could have. 

Almost because no matter how hard, how crappy, how upsetting, how homesick, how lonely, how tiring, how annoying, or how downright rubbish some parts of it have been… it has been one of the best things I have ever done. Maybe because it remained so fun, even when the fun was hugely outweighed by the not-fun. 

* 

I cannot wait to be home. 

I have joked over the last few months of the things I’m going to do once I’m back: paint my nails. Have a bath. Straighten my hair. Eat cottage pie. Have a belated Christmas. Go to Costa. Have my hair cut. Wear a onesie. Stay in my bed for at least 12 hours. Have an Indian from the Mango House. 

But really, I can’t wait to hug my Mum and Dad. I can’t wait to have my sister make me laugh in a way only she can do. I can’t wait to be with Tom. I can’t wait to see Soph, and have real conversations again. I can’t wait to see what Leigh’s life looks like in Bath, or Bryony’s new life in Leeds. 

I can’t wait until I can see the people I love the most, and there won’t be a computer screen in the way. 

*

New Zealand has been incredible, but there’s no place like home. 

And I cannot wait to be back there.