After an intense summer country-hopping in Southern Europe and Northern Africa, here I sit in my parents' "new" 1800s Ohio farmhouse, typing away at the desktop computer console, wrapped in a blanket to counteract the effects of an (overly) effective air conditioning system.
And instead of enjoying the one to two months I set aside to rest, reflect, pray and process, I am unsettled, unsure, and battling what could become a paralyzing anxiety.
It's everyone asking, "What are you doing next?" It's my dwindling savings account. It's my fear of making the wrong choice, of being unhappy. It's struggling to know how integrate what I've learned, who I've become, in the past fifteen months, into the life I left behind. Or if that's even what I want to do.
I've been reading homecoming blogs from round-the-world travelers, which express the thoughts and sentiments of my inner turmoil with greater clarity than I am able. It's comforting to know others have experienced the same sense of bewilderment and upheaval after time spent on a path different than the "normal" American roadmap. The road less traveled.
I'm a new me, and I don't even know what that means yet, so how can I explain it to others or attempt to move forward? And what is forward?
Someone, anyone, Lord, please tell me: Where do I go from here?
In a sense,
it's the coming back,
the return,
which gives meaning to the going forth.
We really don't know where we've been
until we come back to where we were.
Only where we were
may not be as it was
because of who we've become,
which, after all, is why we left...
~ Bernard Stevens, Northern Exposure
