23:05.

It's 55 minutes to the new year and here I am.

It has been a great week and counting - Just being here, being away from work, just being with r a y and doing all the couple-ish things we have not been able to. First time back in church last Sun was a tear-fest for me and though it was at Melb Town Hall which I've never been to before, it felt completely right and an easy fit.

Just like how the rest of things have been really. It might be a generalisation if I were to say that it felt like I have never been away, but there has been a certain smooth groove to living here.

Guess it felt like those last two months (last Dec and this Jan), post-uni and just enjoying the luxury of time and meeting up with friends and hanging around every day.

The last hour of 2005 and I choose to sit here alone to think.

[r a y - who I persuaded to allow me to walk home alone just now from qv - and the rest of church folks are walking over in a short while to catch the fireworks together on the roofdeck. think i worried him insisting on coming back alone, didn't want him to miss any thing.]

I need to. This is not just a holiday. Like how this (almost) past year has been, there are stuff to be learnt this trip.

Rubber soul or wooden heart I don't possess so well, I do get broken and bent and scratched.

It is a tradition since my early teens to spend time alone when one year passes into the next. Last year, I didn't had my usual quiet time, nope, but last year, we (ray, me, ken then vonnie and liz too) were at my home and we worshipped with voices, guitar and drums and my thoughts and me took some time out on the balcony overlooking Victoria Street and Elizabeth Street.

That place is no longer home.

Aah. I no longer have a home here. It's something that took me long to acknowledge and I guess I had to when I sneaked back on that day with my love and we stood in the middle of an empty living room. Little things left behind by housemates I have not lived with for over a year were familiar - that dish cloth, the non stick pans, the pens and markers and fridge magnets in a bowl, the rubber gloves tucked behind the laundry section door.

Stuff.

You know, stuff.

On the walk back just now on the crowded streets, a clear thought articulated this with a slight dash of defiance: "I should be able to walk alone at home and feel safe."

How did the heart and mind see it fitting to come up consistently with the term home? And how do here feel different and same and yet be known still as that?

Like last year, the struggles of feeling like having two homes are still present and this year, a third possibility has been added.

And all that you can't leave behind are always around and the stretching continues; it has gone on so 'nuff this year there are moments where flopping onto a couch and crying some rivers in hope that water sooths pain are reality.

Last year, in about 10 minutes time, I was running or rather trotting across to bouverie close from my place so we could catch the fireworks. In about five minutes, I'll be going up to the roof deck too. Same place, at least two similar persons, three including me, four including Omnipresence.

Everything changed. Some for immense good, others by faith I believe are good, and with all that is, I commit to practical again the lesson of walking on.

There's no other way. And my God is big. Big enough even for rubber souls, wooden hearts and all that are in between.

Godspeed Your answer, Dad.

And everyone else, happy new year.