My Last Day in Malaysia

One of my favourite actresses once said, "Good-byes are horrible, just horrible. Nobody likes them; nobody wants them. We're just animals really, going on instinct. We have moments where find ourselves sobbing, uncontrollably, and we don't even know why. They're just horrible."
That has been me in the last few days.

Leaving home and making another country your home for several years feels like an adventure in the beginning. Finally making the choice to leave that country and go home feels right at the time you decide to do it. But when you have to say good-bye to all the people that you have come to know as a surrogate family, it's just agony. That's because, unlike your real family some of whom you may or (let's face it) may NOT get along with, your surrogate family overseas is made up entirely of people you really like and mates you have chosen to keep with you.

People like that are hard to say good-bye to.

This blog (weblog) will chronicle my trip home, not only the flight from Malaysia to Canada but a much longer journey. It will be about the end of an era in our family.
Packing up the farmhouse, dismantling the grain bins, selling off the farm implements in the auction, the last christmas we'll ever have at the farm, and saying good-bye to 200 years of Augustine family history.

Tonight at one o'clock in the bloody morning I'll be getting on a plane to head back to Canada. Six hours to Korea, followed by ten hours IN Korea, then another ten to Vancouver. After that, another three in the Vancouver airport and finally a one hour flight to Kelowna, BC where I get to see my sister for the first time in two years.

Nobody ever said that the road home was a short one...