Hi Reader,

Last week my husband came into the front room to tell me he had bought tickets to see Stevie Wonder in concert in London in November.

What he forgot to mention until he was standing right in front of me was that he had bought two.

I am going too.

Here is how it happened. Ed is a huge Stevie Wonder fan and when tickets came up I told him he should book. You never know when it will be the last time you get to see someone like that live. He asked me multiple times if I was sure and I kept saying yes. So he booked.

And then he realised that after twenty years in aviation, the anniversary gift sitting quietly in his account was enough free flight sectors for our whole family to get to London.

So it is not just Ed and Stevie Wonder now. It is me, Ed, Elijah and Noah, on a plane to London in a few weeks. I could not be more grateful.

We have not had a proper family trip to London since my dad died. Two years ago I got so homesick I flew back for a whirlwind few days just to see friends and feel the cold and then came straight back home to Sydney. It helped. But it was not the same as going properly.

This is going properly.

And the timing of it is not lost on me.

Elijah was born in London. In the same hospital I was born in. He left before he was old enough to remember any of it and has grown up as a Sydney boy through and through. Taking him back to the city where both of us began feels like something I do not quite have the words for yet.

Noah was born here in Australia. He has never seen London at all. Watching him experience it for the first time through completely fresh eyes is something I have been looking forward to for a long time.

I Came Anyway, my memoir piece in Anthologia Issue 3, is a story about leaving London. About the young woman who arrived in Australia in 2007 with a backpack and a feeling she would never go home. About the years she spent navigating spaces that were not designed for her. About the day she decided to stop making herself smaller.

And now I am going back. With my husband who chose me. With the son who was born there and the son who was born on the other side of the world. With a published chapter in a book that tells the whole story.

The Regent Street Christmas lights go on the week we arrive. I have been dreaming about turkey roast dinners and crisp walks along the Thames with hot chocolate and carol singers and Christmas markets. The boys have never experienced a cold Christmas together and I am so here for their faces when they do.

But underneath all of the excitement is something quieter and harder to name.

Going back always means something. And this time it means more than most.

I will tell you more when we get there.

In the meantime, if you want to understand why going back to London feels like so much more than a holiday, I Came Anyway is available to pre-order right now. It launches 30 December. Link here.

In joy,

Alisha