The past and the future

Today I cried. I was writing and momentarily transported back in time. Autobiography is a very personal process. It’s not enough to simply chronicle the journey, it’s not even enough to tell a story; it must be told in a particular way and it must be told honestly, with feeling. I cried because I was telling the story of coming home, how afraid I had been to leave a place I knew to return to place I didn’t. In the simple telling of the story I was transported back in time and feeling. It also grounded me in the present. Right now, today, I am afraid to return to New Zealand. I haven’t yet discovered who I am. I feel exactly the way I did 12 years ago – I feel like I have completed a second tour and that I am at the beginning of my life again - only this time I am in charge.