Not (quite) Homesick

"You don't know what you've got til it's gone, the sweet paradise of a parking lot" - Tracy Chapman

There was a time where I didn't really feel like riding bikes. A time when even the multitude of trail options and riding groups Tasmania's capital has to offer began to lose their grip on me. I reached a point where I took all of that for granted - the thrill of thrashing the home trails hard became such a monotony that the desire dimmed. The accomplishment that came from making my way down a hardcore section somehow paled. 

So it was without a heavy heart that in my late teens I uprooted my life and left the evergreen foothills of my Hobart life behind, trading my unrecognised paradise for dreams of adventure and the concrete jungles of central Europe. I got on the plane without a backward glance, quickly forgetting the blood , sweat and precious bike parts i'd left littered through the dusty forests that populated the lower slopes of the mountain that I'd called home for the last 19 years. 

Arriving in Europe was an interesting experience to say the least. For the first few months, I drowned myself in the anonymity of so many people and let the cities swallow me whole. I enjoyed the new people, the food, and the fact that my new friend's mother hadn't heard from her friend's daughter's cousin that I had a new girlfriend. I enjoyed the fashion, the freedom to remake myself in the image of my choosing, unconstricted by the same opinions I'd been surround by my whole life.  This was breaking out, this was being truly free. Or so I thought. 

Once the novelty of metropolitan life wore off, once my ears were so saturated with techno drops and my eyes sick of the sight of concrete towers, I realised just how lost I really was. I began to yearn for that different kind of freedom. The kind you find when you're deep in the woods, with only the sound of your tyres echoing off of the thick trunks of the trees all around you. The kind of freedom you feel in your heart when you trade the hustle and bustle of taxis and business people in suits for the intimidating stillness of the forest, the only movement your misted breath slowly dissipating in the cool air. 

Sometimes I feel like I managed to throw that away, seduced by plush carpet, a fancy start up office and an coffee machine to rival any commercial cafe. I've gotten caged up in business life, loosing sight of the trees and the leaves of my childhood, blinded by the cinder block walls and talk of stock options. Just too busy to be sad about it, but just not busy enough to ignore the deep sense of longing that I feel each time I see a picture of home. 

I'm not saying leaving was a mistake - far from it. I wouldn't trade here for anywhere right now, but I think the old saying about the grass being greener on the other side is pretty damn true. Don't forget to enjoy what you've got while you've got it - it (and you) won't be there forever.