‘Welcome home,’ he said, after a slightly awkward conversation about why I couldn’t squeeze in all of the answers to ‘countries visited prior to your arrival in the U.S.’ on my customs control card.

‘Welcome home,’ in a perfectly American accent.

Someone just welcomed me home, yall. And to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it yet…

What I AM feeling certain of though is this:

• I am so, madly, deeply in love with how I lived my life in 2015. I put my health, happiness and adventure above all else. Selfish, maybe. Necessary and beautiful, yes. A million times over.
• I feel different. Not a different person. Not the cliche bullshit. But the way in which I feel, see, hear, touch, love, dream is so emphatically stroked with a new brush. I don’t have an artistic bone in my body, but the world gave me a new paintbrush on this trip. It’s full of people and memories that I want to cling to like paint on a canvas. Always.
• America is still America. The trucks are still big. The flag still gives me goosebumps. Football is still the greatest invention ever. But this American gal comes with a slightly more global twist.

STOP.

I wrote that first bit more than two months ago. Two months ago, someone welcomed me home. I think I just froze. I boarded a plane in Munich thinking I was more than ready to come home. I cried all the way to Dubai and then all the way to Dulles. I deplaned in America, was welcomed home, went straight to Panera and promptly froze. The trip fell into the ‘did-that-dreamyness-really-just-happen’ mode and was replaced with two months of American hustle. TWO months I’ve been home.

And in that time, I’ve batchelorette partied, wedding’ed with three of my best friends, Louisvilled with the Kulls, reunited with my Seattleites,  baby showered, San Fransisco’ed twice, swapped out my traveler’s backpack for a proper rolly-suitcase, Kansas Citied with Bcoy, Penn Stated with Sara, highschool reunioned with a buncha Navy boys, purchased winter-appropriate boots, realized I need to get my finances back in order, Christmas shopped, quenched my football-parched-life, Turkeytrotted, decorated my office desk and made my way through a year’s worth of Good Housekeepings. No, Todo, I don’t think I’m in Spain anymore.

So how do I feel now? Having been welcomed home, having adjusted to the time zone and having accepted the fact that I’m officially easing myself back in to ‘real life?’ How do I feel after two months of frozen in a dreamy stupor?

I feel so in deeply love with how I spent 2015.

I feel different.

And it feels good to be home.