London

64 - "So glad to be back."

Summer 2021

Alex

Summer only just officially started and the weather in London couldn't be any worse. It's as if I predicted that I'd need the feel of sunshine on my skin to regain some happiness. The depressing weather of grey skies and the constant dribble making it impossible to do anything fun outside. I also knew when I booked the tickets that I wanted to be in Palas by the cliff for my father's anniversary of his death. 

Since I moved back to England I haven't been back in Palas and I need it like a drug. The sparse moments I visited some kind of water in England made me realize that I feel most myself by the whisking sea of Palas. In Palas you live outdoors while in England you live indoors and for me and Harry indoors still means our small one-bedroom apartment which we're growing out of. Since we're getting married in a few months, the need for something bigger is growing but we can't seem to settle on anything.

The houses we have visited are either too expensive, too small, in the wrong area or simple not what we're looking for. The small place we live in now is romantic on one hand but on the other it is suffocating. After I moved in I thought we'd find something quick, but I was wrong. We still live there, cramped up with no outdoor space, so stepping out of the plane and seeing the shore of Palas next to me is enough to start crying happy tears for a lot of reasons. 

Harry is already turning on his phone, afraid that his company that he left in the hands of his trainee Jason is burning down already. I think he shouldn't worry, but every time when I tell him to trust Jason he simply laughs at me. Jason came to Harry's shop after it had been open for eight months. Harry is popular amongst known tattoo fans and his demand grew faster than he could deliver. He needed someone to help out and take over simple tattoos and then suddenly there was Jason. To me he seemed like a God sent, but Harry needed persuading. In the end he opened up to Jason and I'm glad that he's treating him okay and is giving him this week to prove himself. I'm sure Jason will be alright, but Harry can't seem to let go. All he talked about on the plane was Jason and all that could go wrong. I can't blame him and it also is nice to see how passionate he still is about his own shop and that it is doing so well. Instead of moan about him not paying attention to me, I let him call to Jason while I silently cry happy-tears and watch all that is happening around me.

The walk from the plane to the bus is still the same. Even the busses seem to have not changed at all since the first time I came here and bumped in to Harry. Then finding him annoying and somewhat scary for the way he reacted, but now he's my soon to be husband and I take his hand. 

He looks down to me, smiling briefly as he talks to Jason. He frowns a bit when he sees that I'm crying, but doesn't end his call immediately. He knows me well enough to see that I'm not upset. Only happy. Buying these tickets and booking a hotel cost me a lot of money and I worked damn hard for them, but I'd do it again every year just to spend some time here. 

For Harry it is different. When we first met here and bonded, he was sure I would come back and I didn't believe him. I saw Palas as a quick way of making money and afterwards I'd grow old with James. But Harry got his way and I came back the next year. For him Palas was a nice retreat and a place to be with me, but for me Palas became a lot more. A place where I found myself and lost myself time after time. After my father died it also became the only place I felt remotely okay, while Harry grew older and wanted to return to his life in England. It is what broke us up the first time. I rooted in Palas and Harry wanted to make a career and he couldn't here. 

Now he has done exactly that and it makes me proud to see him so concerned for his business. I know that after a week we'll return back there, but some of my roots will always stay here. I feel that even clearer now that I'm actually back and I'm only in the airport. But I also realize as quick as a few minutes after landing that home is with Harry and for the past year I have been my happiest in London. Palas is a nice place to visit and reminisce about, but it is not home. It's a place for vacation, something to look forward to, and I hope that Harry will stop stressing out and enjoy his time away from home. I already am, but I don't have an exciting business waiting for me in London. I don't know that sort of responsibility.