Homelessness and homesickness.

It's been quite a week.

Last Monday night, I packed my bags and headed off to Korea. I made new friends, explored new places, and learnt new things. I won't go into details, but I had a wonderful time, returning to the life of being a traveller.

And then I returned to Hanoi, and the reality of leaving tomorrow has finally sunk in. I am leaving the place that I have called home for the past eight and a half months. But I also realised that, in spite of all the awesome and challenging experiences that I've had here, it's never really been my home. I've met plenty of ex-pats who love it here, and don't have any immediate plans to leave. For them, it's become the place that they call home, and I envy this. I don't feel bad about leaving - I feel indifferent, and that makes me feel bad.

To be honest, I worry that I won't ever be able to call a place my home anymore. I've lost that feeling of belonging, and I'm about to embark on another extraordinary journey that will take me to new and interesting places, and the wonders and challenges that they will present to me. The knowledge that I'm unlikely to feel "settled" for at least a few more years scares me.

At the same time, I feel like I've been away from Melbourne for too long to ever feel like it's really my home anymore either. To be somewhere where I can just be comfortable being myself, and surrounded by people who "get" me. I do miss that, and crave it often - such is the nature of homesickness.

But maybe homesickness is like nostalgia - a yearning for something that isn't there anymore - and the best thing I can do is just to keep moving forward and build a new future for myself. Be the perpetual traveller, and don't settle, until the time is right for me.