So here I am. Last entry in the good ol' blog. I have been home for about three weeks. My head isn't really clear yet.

I had a great break. My friends had a surprise party for me - they invited tons of people, some of whom I haven't seen in years. It was really nice of them - I've never had a surprise party before. My cousin came up from Miami to see me, and we did all kinds of family things and had Christmas and New Years and all that, which were great. Then I passed out and slept for two days straight, went to work for a week, and moved immediately back to school. Perugia, Paris, Medfield, Boston. I still pretty much have no idea where I am or what is going on, really.

It's alright, though. I am happy to be home, and I have been seeing my family and friends and doing everything I missed in Italy. The problem is that I am just feeling sort like nothing. I think so much has changed within the past few weeks that I have either evolved to be just really good at change (which is possible), or I just have not freaked out yet (uh oh). Jet lag isn't something you mess with, I guess - that's what happened to me the first time I got back from Greece, two years ago. I reacted in this sort of hysterical way that I'm not really proud of, so I've been careful this time to take it slow and keep focused on doing things I like and seeing people. It's just a lot harder than you'd think, for some reason. Maybe it's just the fact that it's all over, or maybe you miss the way you felt as an explorer. Part of the fact, also, is that relationships have to change while we're gone. The only price to pay for stepping out of your life for a while is that, while you were gone, other people changed. It sounds stupid, but one of the hardest parts of coming back was that the guy I was crazy about before I left isn't around anymore. It's a lot harder to come back than it is to go. Other than all that, though, it's really nice to be home and be surrounded by all those people I missed. I sort of learned how much I liked having them around.

I do miss Perugia. It was a different world. I miss the old world streets, my creepy medieval apartment, the coffee shops and the little old men that memorized your orders. I miss the storekeepers who lived near us and their bustling families and my hidden beautiful church that made me feel so peaceful when I went inside, even though I never really even went to pray, just sit. But even more than Perugia, I miss the movement of travel. I miss the wide-open friendliness that backpackers have amongst each other, the willingness to make friends and invite people into your life because you have something in common. I miss the attitude of my fellow students; when you travel for a while, you get to be good at wandering around and really appreciating small things, and I love seeing people that way.

I did change, I think. The wild surreal gorgeousness of Greece: I didn't think it would be as amazing as I remembered, but it was. The punky-cool attitude of London's markets, the family warmth of Ireland, its cold cliffs dropping into the choppy gray Atlantic, and sitting in pub basements talking with Irish kids and listening to live music that flows around you and fills up your heart like water. Tiny rows of bicycles and houses superimposed on neon sex shops, free people, feeling tears running down my face in the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. The Christmas magic of the Paris lights: the Disney show, feeling like a little kid, the majesty of the Eiffel tower, the vaulting arches of Notre Dame, the glitter of the store windows. Fancy hotel rooms in Milan, hilarious overnight train rides, the crashing waves on that ferry that soaked everyone in Greece, Saint Peter's basilica, the David, Pompeii, the hilarious rush of Naples, the moment I stood on a hill in Positano and cried because of gorgeous sensory overload. The sweet life in Perugia - if there is one thing I learned in Perugia, it was to look for beauty in the world. If you hear music, close your eyes and let it flow around you. If you eat, really taste. If you see someone, stare at them and consider each part of them: their appearance, their attitude, their clothing, and recognize its beauty. I learned to appreciate good company a lot more. It's about experiences, and how much you can learn about each other.

How could I not have changed, after seeing all this?

But I think, most of all, what surprised me about this trip was how remarkably "myself" I stayed. When you are at home, surrounded by your own people and things, it is easy to move throughout your daily routine and not think about it. When I was on my own, I saw my strengths develop. I became more motivated, more outgoing. Why else would I call my Irish family that I've never met and invite myself over? That's ridiculous. I was just in travel mode. I saw my own laid-back nature; I slept on floors for weeks and ate only loaves of bread and loved it; I found happiness just roaming around. I learned some of this through my friends, but had a lot of it in me. I saw my own courage and felt my own independence. I felt pride at working my way down from Milan to Perugia alone, staying in a hotel by myself. I developed this real instinct for self-protection and self-assertion there, having spent so much time alone, which I think is a good thing. I did not know that I had it in me all along, but it was just a part of me I hadn't seen yet. I wrote something (after I went to Positano, when I stood on this overlook and there was music playing and I was sad and happy at once and it was weird) on this subject. This entry is getting long, but I just want to paste part of it in here to maybe explain myself a bit on the staying-myself thing, and on the appreciating-beauty thing:

"If you're alone, if you're looking at something so beautiful it makes you cry, it's worth it. Even if no one else sees it, even if you try to write about it and you can't get the words out right, you remember it. Even if you're alone, and you don't have any of the things or people that you think make you you, you're relieved to find that you're still yourself. You become more yourself than ever. We go far from everything we love just to see that, even far away, we are still ourselves.

I loved every guitar strum and syllable; you always remember the things that you love in perfect clarity. I loved every inch of that place. I loved the hard warmth of the stone under my hands that held me up when I felt like I was shot through and I didn't know why.

Sometimes, things are so pretty that they hurt. It's hard to explain. This is as close as I could get. All I know is that, when I'm supposed to write about how I've changed over time here, the most important thing I'll remember is how the world changed around me, but how I stayed the same. I just became more clearly myself."

So I guess that's it. This entry seems a little bit broken, I think. I am trying to work the experience I just had into my "normal" life, though, which is a confusing thing anyway and difficult to put into words. There is this quote that says, "The further you go, the less you know."

I didn't have any New Year's Resolutions this year, even though graduation and career-starting and all that are coming up. I never have resolutions. This year, literally as the clock struck twelve, I knew my new resolution; I knew what it would be every year from now on. It didn't have anything to do with planning, but it had everything to do with improving myself. I want to GO again. It doesn't matter where. Hopefully, I will be on the move again soon.

Thanks for reading. Over and out.