I have heard of this phenomenon before. It happened to a few friends and acquaintances who were also on exchange but who came back weeks earlier. This exchange , the last six months, just seems so surreal.
Unlike them, I did not come back to the same Singapore I left- My room was moved just before i left, the familiar Causeway point has undergone huge changes and is still changing, and I have changed.
I am still suffering from Jet lag. Serious jet lag. However, it all boils down to when I WANT to go to sleep. Or maybe I should say, that it all boils down to when I want to wake up. Both literally and metaphorically. I sit here in my bed, after the 10 or so scrabble games and the bleach episode of the week and stare at my facebook updates from friends 10,069 km away. In the cyber realm its as if I never left. The only tell tale signs were my own changing of my current location on Facebook. Its funny when even Facebook asks you if you are in Singapore for a visit, if you are near Singapore or if you are already there, or here.
For the past 3 weeks it has been surreal. I have woken up, thrice, to different climates. I remember clearly how I walked out of Paris’s southern train station in short sleeves and shorts only to shiver my way down to the nearest subway station and continue on in a well-lit, but noisier metro line. Waking up in Nice three days before was even more of a shock. The morn I arrived it seemed as if the trees and ground had just been removed and replaced while I was in the sleeper cabin from Mulhouse. The Nice temperature and humidity mirrored that of the hottest day in Zurich the day before, but only in the morning. By the time I strolled into the hostel from the train station, I was almost melting from the mid-day heat of the french riviera.
All my experiences -the change in climate, culture and scenery every 3 days – over the past 3 weeks couldn’t come close to preparing me for the change I felt when I landed. There were so many free services here; the internet usage was free; the water was free; the toilets were free. I just couldn’t help feel the difference from Europe. I instantly switched back to Singlish when speaking to the transit hall liquer store “aunties” and got myself a hazelnut baileys, the newest flavour, with a free cooler bag. All these free services and gifts- the differences that I had become accustomed to in Singapore- could not jolt me into the sense that I was in a different place than before. I didn’t feel the difference, yet.
It took my breath away, literally. Like my brother had described 2 years before, when he returned to visit with his current squeeze, it was like walking into an inivisible wall. The second breath I took had me taking a deeper breath, as if the oxygen had evaporated right as I passed through those glass sliding doors and into the terminal 2 carpark. Nothing can ever prepare you for that distinctive “Welcome to Singapore” feel.
All my years living here and breathing this damp air, I have never had such a long stint away from this island. It has been my longest time away from home and now that I am back, it almost seems too short. Questions linger in my mind as I lie on my bed and feel a sticky layer gloss over my skin as the hours tick by. I almost ask myself why the sun hasn’t risen even though it is 1 hour past the 5am sunrise time. Here the sunset and rise are fixed- you almost don’t need a watch. Just as I was growing accustomed to insanely long daylight hours- from 5am to 10pm!- I am wooshed back to a 7-7 daylight time.
I glance back at the steady updates from Munich and Europe and wonder if I will ever meet these people again. It almost seemed as if I had too much to drink(which isn’t a lot actually) and had woken up with 20 more friends from Bavaria, a jumble of memories, over 5000 photographs and a suitcase of weird memorabilia. But none of these things are sure reminders of where I’ve been. The surest difference is in me. I cannot deny that it was real; I cannot go back to living life like I used to. I am a changed man.
Beyond the funky , self-made “designer” glasses I don for the time being and beyond the longest hair I have had since I was born, I see clearly now. My girlfriend would have never chosen to be with me, would have never chosen to have a long distance relationship with me, if SHE hadn’t gone for her own exchange a year before mine. Experience changes people, changes perspectives and changes lives. Dreams don’t.
Even if it was, it was one heck of a dream i’d willingly have again in an instant! But now , it looks like I will need to want to, wake up.
