For good.

At Heathrow Airport, as we were trying to get the luggage sorted out, my strange 10-year-old brother blinked a few times (I think it's a nervous tick he's developed, but he says it's just because he's sleepy) then asked, "Err... you're coming back wif us, right?"

"Yep," I said.

Blink blink. "Err... back to Malaysia?"

"Yep."

Blink blink blink. "On the same flight?"

"... Yep."

Blink. Blink blink. "Err... and you're coming back for good?"

"... Yep."

Blink blink blink. Smile. Big grin. Look at Mom. Then look at me.

"Oh," he said. "At first I found it hard to believe."

Me too, kiddo. Me too.

+++

A short transit in Dubai, and a few hours of boredom/terror on the plane later, I am back in my room, at my parents' house in Malaysia. For three and a half years I didn't know what it was like to be anywhere "for good", I was always moving in a few days, weeks, months. I missed out on my siblings' milestones, I wished many happy birthdays from a distance. When I came home on holidays it was always such an event, because I'd leave again.. and when I was in Oztraylia it was always temporary.

And now, it seems, I'm back in my home country. For good.

(I wonder what that means, exactly).

The boxes that I shipped over arrived safely, and the first thing I did was check on my guitars. They're safe.

My room looks exactly the same, with the sheets that I like, and the piles of junk I'd forgotten I had, and the motivational posters I made for myself when I was 16, still stuck to the walls.

The house has changed somewhat. There's a new tv. My mom's redone the kitchen. My brother's toy corner, which evolved into a toy room, has eventually spilled over so that now, if it's not someone's room, it's a toy space. I look at my snobbish house with its snobbish cars in the garage and its snobbish Home Entertainment System and I wonder if I belong here at all, if this will ever be my Home again. (For good.)

It is now 5 in the morning, and I'm entertaining Mr Jetlag. Tomorrow I have to unpack my boxes and suitcases, next week I have to redecorate my room, and sometime in the near future, I have to decide what to do.

I know the questions will come soon: So what's your plan?

So what now?

I dunno, man. For now the extent of my foresight is up until the next meal, and then we see how it goes lah.