Back to Life, Back to Reality...

Getting back into the swing of life in America is quite an adjustment. And I think the largest adjustment is learning how to live here being who I am now. Eight months abroad changed me drastically, and I feel as if the lessons God is teaching me now are a mere consequence of the fact that growth has occurred so much in my life recently.

The woman I am now is so incredibly different from the one that left Tucson. It isn't simply a change of mind, or mindset that has taken place. I think differently. I react differently. I am... different. I am tidy (That one is just weird to cope with), I am a mac user (that was a consequence of my team and friends in Holland), I like to work out, I don't enjoy driving, I love reading. I am not ashamed of who I am. I am not as ashamed of how I look. I forgive faster. I don't find fault with people as quickly or as often, and when I do I try to forget about it or ask forgiveness for it. And I think the largest adjustment is my honesty. I am far more open with people, and I am a woman who is never open. Trust, with me, is just something that people rarely get, or perhaps I should say "got". Since I have returned I am a new and more honest person. Perhaps most people would still call me emotionally reserved, but my transition from never being open to being just average is a long and painful journey, for me.

Living as this new person in an old environment is odd. But I wouldn't say all this change occurred in England. My alterations have been a continual process since the day I got on the plane to Heathrow from Sky Harbor. Slow... sometimes painful (most times, actually)... and challengingly uncomfortable.