A Different Kind of Homesick

You know what I miss most about living in the Midwest? My friends there. The same thing goes for Delhi. That’s really what makes a place feel like home, after all.

Take today for example. Normally a Friday during the year in Delhi would mean a visit up for knitting group, or Twisted Threads as everyone insists on calling it. (Just because I’m the only knitter amongst a gaggle of Needle Pointing Ladies doesn’t mean that I’m not right!) I’d wake up early with Hubby and drive to meet MK at her house and we would share the one-hour ride to Gurgaon where all the Ladies live. For two hours we would sit and gossip (about everything from Doctor Pepper and Queen E’s friend Pedro, to making fun of a certain Delhi Typ0 and her tendency to drink), sit and eat, and sit and maybe or maybe not work on our crafts. Then MK and I would head off back into the city to eat lunch, maybe do some grocery shopping and then back home. If I was feeling particularly industrious I’d maybe even meet Kiwi for a coffee and a look at her bump (aka Little Kiwi). (Although I still think that Typ0 would be an excellent name for the baby!)

Later that evening, Hubby would come up and we’d debate about what we didn’t want to eat for dinner. Then we’d head off to the bar of choice, which had lately been Aura (aka The Vodka Bar), for some drinks with the gang. Dinner would follow soon after for reasons having as much to do with sobering up as being hungry. Life and friendships were good. Life was good because we had cool ass people to hang out with.

The same was true back in Illinois. I’d get to work and toil for hours on end (stop laughing, guys!), con someone into thinking they wanted to go to Casa for lunch. Then we’d work a little, chat a little, gossip a lot… I miss that. I miss you guys. (BTW, Yahoo ate my address book so email me, guys, and I promise not to take a year to email back!) Chatting about work, goals…

That’s the other thing I’ve been missing about Illinois: work. I used to love getting to work, seeing what new thing there was to do, complaining about the new thing there was to do… Figuring out the perfect training schedule, putting it in everyone’s calendar only to be told that the days were changing and my work was for naught. Freak I am, I really enjoyed that stuff. Keeping in touch with the lives of everyone in that building kept me busy. It kept me sane. Sane-ish?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying my life as an expat wife but every so often a girl needs to know that she’s the one with the answer to the riddle that no one else can answer, and that she has a purpose. I can’t even imagine how much that place has changed in the year since I’ve been gone, but a small part of me wishes that I could have been part of those changes. And an even bigger part of the lives of the people in that building.