Home.

It's the weirdest thing I have ever experienced. You spend five months of your life in a wonderful place, say your goodbyes, hop on a 18 our plane through Senegal and Washington DC, where you almost lose your laptop at the airport (how ironic would that be?), try like a ten year old to figure out your cell phone, and enjoy your first bagel and good coffee in five months, and then hop on a plane to Boston. You are walking down the airport hallway and suddenly you here footsteps and your little brother is upon you and then your dad is there and suddenly everything, Cape Town, Africa, just feels like a dream. Like you just woke up from an incredible dream.

I am sitting in my bed right now at 4 in the morning because I went to be at 830, and despite my best attempts I am jetlagged. I am enjoying free internet, sitting in my room with all its familiar smells. The drive home from Boston was a blur. I got home, hugged my mother forever, tackled my crazy pooch, and took a shower. Letting the water fall over my face without holding up a crappy showerhead was unexplainable. It was the best shower of my life. My little brother, who suddenly has a girlfriend and a license, drove me to get iced coffee from Dunkin and then around Leominster, making me feel just bizarre. There are no mountains. Everything looks exactly the same. By this time I was already feeling exhausted. After getting delicious chicken parm from Athens (something I have missed beyond belief) and drinking the wine I brought home for my parents, I gave out presents and we looked at some pictures before everyone got tired. I passed out to my first Red Sox game of the season (sox, yanks).

I feel the weirdest I have ever felt. Everything is just so green. My house smells the same. Was it all a dream? It's all so familiar, yet so foreign. I feel at the same time so connected to home yet like an outsider looking in. I feel both incredibly sad and overcome with happiness. I need to relax a little bit, stop expecting what is impossible to expect, and accept that after everything, I am a different person. I have changed, though I have no idea how to articulate how. Maybe I have finally grown up? We'll see. The one thing I do know is that I am so happy to be home.