Apprevution

“The novelty will wear off anywhere” he said one day.

I had been longing to live anywhere but here for as long as I could remember. The dull, red bricks and boxy bushes of privet lining rows of suburban houses, contrasted against a perpetually grey sky.

We were discussing my upcoming move. I had secured employment in Australia and had talked of little else since getting the news. All waking thoughts were occupied by daydreams of being in a café, looking out onto a cloudless sky that meets the deep blue ocean, with the sweet chirping of wild parakeets providing the soundtrack.

The novelty of that will never wear off, I thought.

I was still thinking about this sentiment on the bus later that afternoon.

I looked at the red bricks and the privet bushes. And I saw it then. I saw the carefully cut, square lawns and the purposely selected window-frame colours that matched the front doors. I saw the parents watching their children go round and round on a rusty roundabout as I passed the local park. I saw the yellow newsagents on the corner which has supplied sweets and lottery tickets for generations.

I had seen all of these sights’ countless times, but I had the feeling of seeing them for the very first time; as though I was looking through somebody else’s eyes. I wondered then, was I running away to greener grass, or had the novelty of here just worn off?