Family Time

I had thought about what leaving South Africa was going to be like early on in my trip.  I figured I would leave the Rainbow Nation behind along with my email address to the couple of friends I had made on my journey.  I figured I would return with some impressive new photos, a nice tan, maybe a wooden giraffe souvenir.  However, as I sit here in my Colorado home, still in awe at how I could have forgotten how cold these snowy days can be, I realize that I had sorely underestimated what returning to America would be like.

Home is Not Where You Live, but Where They Understand You.

It has been exactly three weeks since I have left Cork city to return to the United States and for me, coming home has been a very surreal experience. At first I felt like a stranger in my own home and almost as if I had returned to a foreign country. However, immediately upon my return I was welcomed by many of my friends and family making coming home a bit easier than I had anticipated. It took a bit of time to get used to the different smells and sounds surrounding me. I could hear the train that’s just down the road, smell the flowers that bloom every summer in the tree out front, and see all the cotton that releases from all the cottonwood trees in the neighborhood. As irritating as the train horn is, as overwhelming as the smell can be, and as aggravating as that cotton flies, it’s familiar things like that that make coming home feel nice.

Another Place, Another End but I’ll Hold On…

So a question I’ve been hearing a lot is “Are you ready to go home?” The answer unfortunately isn’t that easy to give. On so many levels I’m not done with this place—the people, the traveling, the experience. But it has made me realize some important things about the US.

I will always be tied to the US because that’s where not only my family is, but also where I was shaped into the person I am today. Not saying that living here in Belfast hasn’t also shaped me, but my foundation, as a person, was built in the US. So as much as I love this city and this country, it will probably never bear the same sort of attachments as the US.