home.

I've slept in my bed at my parent's house for two weeks now. Home. It's been a whirlwind. My plane landed and I jumped into the busiest, fullest time of year. For the first few days, I hid away feelings and put off till tomorrow my emotions of being home and all that had happened. It just felt like too much and I just wanted to feel "Christmasy". Time collapses like an accordion once it's past. What once felt like an eternity, taking up your whole universe, becomes this distant place, person, thing. Untouchable and sepia toned. So now what? That's been the question of the hour, both from myself and from just about everyone I've talked to. Funny thing is, I don't really know. I mean, I've joined the great job search and contemplate daily how I'm going to make it through the next few weeks on my skinny bank account. But I'm trying to let the lessons rise to the surface and stick. I need them to stick. I don't have one big thing I can point to that defines the gift these last months have been, and the process leading up to them. What's in my soul looks more like a menagerie of little things, tiny but strong. I think about tortillas at meal times, the way my host mom clasped her hands every time she laughed, the smell of the air in the Austrian mountains, and mostly the people who I shared a little bit of life with.

It's a new year. And I spent it eating sushi with my family and singing "Auld Lang Syne" to my baby nephew. I worried when I got back if I would find life at home meaningless. I haven't found that here. Instead I've found that goodness is everywhere, it's just how you see it. Maybe that is one of the greatest things I learned. Goodness is everywhere. As is the bad. But, by grace, I have so much goodness to wrap me up. A good friend used to say, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." I'm bad with endings and goodbyes but I'm smiling. It happened and I'm smiling.