Between Here and There

"How does it feel like living in two completely different world? It must be so exciting, eh?", my father once asked me.

It's been three weeks since I was back to a place where the air feels warm, humid, and heavy with the scent of tropical vegetation. Despite the fact that I had been here just seven months ago for three weeks, the city never failed to surprise me on how much it had changed since the last time I came. It didn't seem like all that long ago that I met familiar faces and voices. It didn't seem like all that long ago that I saw the massive skyscrapers where expats work and middle classes spend their money, surrounded with unaesthetic slum settlements where the poor live. It didn't seem like all that long ago that I had to book drivers with my phone in order to get from one place to another. It didn't seem like all that long ago that sweat would continually trickle down my clothes so easily. Yet I feel like there's a part of myself that is still up there in the air, not yet returning to my body. It feels like I'm still on a jet-lag; half-confused, half-dizzy, half-lost, as if my system is still reeling from reverse culture shock. Maybe that's why I haven't found a complete answer to my father's question.