Looking for patterns in things is part of the human condition to keep us alive, to make scientific discoveries, it is a key component of mathematics. Patterns are everywhere. Here is one I’ve noticed. When Helena and I get home from somewhere, be it Wellington or in this case the spectacular Rotomairewhenua, we metaphorically wander round the house weeing in the corners (marking territory) we do a particular kind of sighing and flop delighted to be home. Then for the next couple of days life is a bit pants even though we are pleased to be home. It’s like a great big come down. I unpack, clean etc. I actually think “what now”? and feel totally flat. Helena just asks to watch TV or listen to audio books. She watched Junior Bake for a whole morning and has listened to talking books for hours. She has cried a bit too, about weird stuff. She has done brief bits of play with the things she was missing but all in a surface way. Finally now, two and a half days after our return, she isn’t at a loss but has found some weird self directed task..  cutting up her baby photos! Redecorating apparently.

The photos are a thing she keeps returning to, she says it’s because she likes babies. She talks to them. She wishes she was still a baby. Sometimes she says “I want to go home” when she is at home, I think she means she wants to back to when the world was easy and I made things better, I didn’t expect her to help clean up her mess or what ever it was that set her off. It’s grief she is expressing rather than homesickness.

I’ve started to read and remembered at least one of my squillions of uncompleted projects… Now I see the pattern I think next time we go away I think I should plan ahead for the blah days, put something in them.