Fleeting bouts of homesickness were sometimes triggered by 100% Pure NZ ads in the Observer Sunday supplements; that discombobulated feeling of being stranger in a strange land. London had long since ceased to fill me with awe when I made the phone call to the Air New Zealand shop in the Haymarket. Heathrow to Wellington, via Hong Kong and Auckland. One way. The last few weeks were spent saying goodbye (wrenching, awful and never ending) and packing my life into tea cartons. It was exhausting and I was itchy to get on the plane. Then suddenly it was The Last Day. I said my final goodbye and was through airport security and customs and duty free. And then I rounded a corner in Terminal 3 and there was the massive Boeing with a koru on the tail, waiting to take me home.

Tears ran down my face as we flew over the Huaraki Gulf. I waited an age for my bags, my mobile beeping with welcome home messages. I remember the damp, early morning heat, the scents of av gas and rain on concrete as I walked to the domestic terminal for the flight to Wellington. A year ago today, I came home.

Jet lag hit me like a freight train. For around 10 days, I didn’t sleep for more than an hour a night. This left me teary and unable to make decisions. I lived on cups of tea. I think I was in shock. I had come home to renovate the house I had bought while on holiday six months earlier. In my head it was a warm little cottage full of colour and light and the mementos, art and rugs I had bought on my travels. In reality I was looking through the window of a wooden shell. With no back wall where the extension was going to be built. Half the floor boards had to be removed because they were rotten (that beautiful matai floor I had planned on polishing). I had never owned property before, never mind renovated anything. I was doing all of this alone. And I didn’t even have a plug adapter for my hairdryer in my noisy, cold, random beige apartment. And what the hell is going on with Welly’s roading strategy? I drove up a one way street the wrong way and collapsed into tears as the error of my ways was forcibly communicated by a shouty, sweary man. What the hell had I done coming home? Did I even have a home anymore? Mum had died and my marriage imploded. The remainder of my family had moved to Bris Vegas. Where did I belong? I felt utterly out of my depth.

Slowly I pulled myself together. The jet lag began to subside and I acknowledged with gratitude, the small gestures that made all the difference: a parking attendant who let me off a ticket; the woman from Telecom who made me laugh and hooked me up to the information super highway, welcomed me home and was just so nice; seeing Welly harbour in the morning; Unity books and lafarre coffee. The view of the city from Petone. And so I found my stride with the house and took on the role of project manager. I adopted George from the SPCA, who became my touchstone (he is a fantastic listener). I began to catch up with old friends. I planned the furniture I would need, and was swept up in decisions about paint colours, tile sizes, light fittings, carpet weave and curtain length and finally the logistics of moving in.

And now here I am, sitting in the kitchen of the warm little house I envisaged. I have a challenging job that keeps me in cheese and bus tickets, a wonderful mix of old and new friends, and did I mention I met a boy whose kisses make my toes curl?

A few weeks after I came home, I wandered around the NZ Art Show. I found myself drawn to a concrete sculpture of a crouching woman called ‘Emerge’. It resonated with me so much and looking at her now, I feel as though I have emerged. As though I have completed some journey I began travelling on a long time ago. It’s good to be home.

‘…and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom’ ~ Anais Nin

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