By Melina Filippidou

Turn back on home

This week the school will be closed and we’ll be getting some rest. It’s pretty much the
middle of the year and a pause makes sense for many reasons. It’s a chance to take a breath,
to prepare and reflect, to brace ourselves for season 2, to travel and consume culture or
“collect dots” according to the SCA vocabulary. Therefore it was supposed to be a good
chance for me to fly back home, especially since this is the week of Carnival in Greece and
it’s a lot of fun for those we wish to collect dots, amongst other stuff. What we do in fact is
we take an old tradition, we soak it in alcohol and then we sacrifice it on the altar of
consumerism. We have a great time doing it, plus we prove to ourselves and to other
countries that we belong indeed to the west world.

But I decided not to go. Not because of the work I have to do but because once I’m there it’s
hard to leave. Last time I visited over Christmas holiday, my pre-SCA life was there waiting
for me with open arms, and I found it very easy to get used to it again, and very difficult to
let it go when I had to. I couldn’t let go of the warmth. The warmth of my home, the warmth
of the sun, the warmth of the food, the hugs, the people who were happy just to see me.
There are many definitions of home and my least favorite is the one that refers to home
countries. I find it conservative, lazy and widely inaccurate. But right now it makes perfect
sense to me. However it feels so weird to miss the same country that pushed me away. It’s
confusing how the country that used to make me feel so insecure about my future has now
become synonymous to safety. I know it’s probably nostalgia goggles although I didn’t
expect nostalgia to visit me so soon. After all it’s only been 5 months.

In September I came in London with a big goal. By December I already had a new big goal
and three smaller ones. Then I went back home, felt cozy, safe, loved and the realization of
what I had been missing those four months became clearer than ever. The last day of the
Christmas break, I was reflecting on my goals while packing and suddenly they seemed twice
as hard. I can’t afford to have this feeling more than once this year because it holds me back
when I actually need to accelerate. So half term finds me in London, making my first official
sacrifice for my goals: turning my back on warmth. It may seem like overreacting but it’s not
like I ’m going to avoid Greece forever. These last months have been very intense
emotionally and I need some distance until I figure out how to deal with all these intense
and occasionally mixed emotions without jeopardizing the logic of my goals. It’ll be fine. I
guess.