Homecoming

A year. It has *only* been a year. It feels like a lifetime ago, once removed.

This is my bed, white sheets, two pillows. The shower with it's partial sliding glass doors, the collapsible partitions. My old, old clothes. The humidity, not as insufferable as Hong Kong's, but pressing close by like a debt collector or an old friend. The books of my childhood, a row of CS Lewis and L.M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott.

It's hard to categorize this particular feeling I have. The getting of something that one has longed, pined for for so long - what do you do next? What grand gesture can you do, besides running down the street crying "I'm home! I'm home!" (and even that might not work) that will relieve this feeling in your chest? This exultant jubilation, this bottomless contentment, this quiet relief, this surging sentimentality agitated by the tangible reminders of everything that has shaped you. With wonder you look at the marks you left on your surroundings, pinpoints in time past to a history you barely remember happening.

Success, the future, dreams are vague, but home is very, very tangible. I just want to bask in this for a while.