I will fly home today.

That line sounded funny, as if it couldn’t quite be real somehow. I’ve seen enough friends off that I am more familiar with the airport than I should be. This time it is me that will go.

I can’t believe this partly because I have been away from home for a year. Unlike my other friends here, I have not flown back. I have not seen my family or my friends there for a year. You know the number of days, I won’t even say it.

Being here has meant a great many sacrifices. I have missed birthdays, too many of them. I missed Christmas shopping with my best friend, Wern, something we do every year. When my ex-”roommate” Justin quit his job to start his own company, I was not around, his old deadbeat partner.

Chinese New Year means reunion dinner on the eve. I have not missed a single one before. Till now. And it is my year. The Year of the Horse. My bank balance would have been healthier too; I would gotten angpows, “red packets” filled with good luck money, from my elders and married peers.

I’ve lost a year out of the growing years of my nephew and two nieces. I do not how well they do at school or how tall they are now or how handsome or pretty. I miss talking at nights with my sister, the only time when I am the one who listens. And Mom and Dad, everything.

I miss… Too much.

Yet part of the reason that this seems hard is because I have been here so long, I wonder what would a day without a “Grüß Gott!” would be like? No beer, not good Bavarian beer anyway. I’ll prolly have to worry about cars knocking me down again. And, this sounds stupid, no Wiener Schnitzel mit Pommes at good ol’ Tribühne.

But all this means nothing without the people, my friends, who are the ones I truly miss. Which is why I need to return to past pastures now, to greet and meet my loved ones, to be with people again.

I will arrive in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on the first of September. My family will be there and they will take me home.

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Copyright © 2002 Kenny Mah Ying Fye.