Fast forward: Homecomings

Well, I'm sure you've noticed my vast and gaping silence since my post about the golden days of October. Despite my best intentions, November and December got away from me! Work increased exponentially, and then it was the holidays, and then...it was time to pack and go back to Seattle.

So we got on the airplane in Budapest amidst snow and sub-zero temperatures, and we were greeted in Seattle with sun and mid 50's (F). Now I'm back to work, and we have transitioned from the unexpected sunshine to a much more seasonal cold Seattle winter rain (and mud), and I'm trying not to feel too sorry for myself.

Change is hard. Any change is hard. And this... This is definitely a big change.

The jet lag was done with pretty quickly, but the culture lag is something else. I keep wanting to say "Egészségedre!" when someone sneezes. Then I remember to say "Bless you" instead. It feels weird to see so many large parking lots, and so much suburban sprawl. I'm doing too much driving. On the other hand, there are mountains! And of course there are plenty of trees, too.


One of the most baffling feelings is trying to convey to people at home the magnitude of what I experienced. I received a letter from my aunt just after arriving home, and she expressed it perfectly. She wrote, "One of the things that was always hard for me coming home from faraway places was the simple impossibility of sharing with the folks at home. They see you but are blind to your treasure of experiences."

People ask me how it was, and I say (beaming), "It was amazing!" And it was. I am still in a continuous state of amazement. I try to say something more, to share details that will start to touch the ways that this experience transformed me, and I find myself wordless. I'm trying to describe the whole elephant in a few words, and I can't,
so I stop speaking.

In reality, I think what's needed is more time for reflection. So that's why I'm turning back to this blog as a way to process -- and share retrospectively -- more of my experiences. It will take some time to decant them. I suspect I'll still be writing about this in six months... I hope you don't lose interest! But hey -- I'll try to mix in some more current events, too, to make sure that things stay fresh. I suspect the topics are going to pop out in totally random order, but hey -- life is kind of like that anyway.

Thanks for being along on this adventure with me -- it's just as important as the one I just had.