It's bitter sweet and kind of vexing...

Being home for xmas that is. It's a delight to have a load of time off from work and a bit of time to relax and unwind... but it's also a kind of struggle. Reverse culture shock is sometimes so difficult to explain. What should be familiar feels oddly foreign and what sounds totally foreign here sounds more normal to me... quite a strange place to be.... with all the struggles we're facing in Barca I sometimes dream of packing it all in and moving back 'home' but the stark reality is... there is no way that would be possible. The mere idea of moving back here with nothing and starting from scratch again with no house no car no money no job seems insane. It quite simply will not happen. Life is indeed what you make it and at some points in life you simply cannot change it. Finacial freedom would of course be a grand facilitator but since that is very much not the situation for us we'll have to resolve to continue on schmucking our meagre Barcelona existence for the foreseeable future. I think it's all part and parcel of these dark days... sometimes you want to dream of an escape but the thing you don't count on is that your escape would just be a path into more problems... sigh

Perhaps it's the added vunerability I feel being home again with the wee one without Fredu who sadly can still not travel. Being fragmented from your immediate family at xmas is not something that is much fun for me... of course i know others would delight in such an arrangement but it's really for Sienna as it's her first xmas that she will really understand what's going on and he's not going to be here with us to enjoy it... but life just keeps lobbing lemons... and my hands are full of paper cuts but I'm still catching them.