That’s all folks!
Well, that’s it…I’m home! I’m back in Madison, Wisconsin and am making the transition into having a home, having my friends nearby and holding down a steady job once again! Since arriving in Madison just in time for Christmas, being treated to an unexpected, glorious WHITE Christmas and making it through the food-and-presents bonanza, I have officially set up shop and started life anew.
My trip? A wonderful 16 months passed, in which I was able to explore far corners, be it on my own or with new friends. The one main result of doing and seeing so much is that I want to do and see that much more!! I am so grateful that I had the opportunity and the means to take so much time off and to have such an adventure. Before I left, people kept saying to me how brave I must be to embark on a trip like this, and at the time I kept telling me that no, no, it wasn’t brave, it was just something I wanted to do. Now I’ve learned to accept that it did, in fact, take bravery and bravery is something I now know I have! I arrive home a mere month ago and I already feel well on my way into my next phase, feeling like I took advantage of all the possibilities open to me in my previous phase — it’s a very satisfying feeling.
The most surprising part about being home? How everything seems more or less the same. Before I left and while traveling I always the same sense of 16 months being a decently long amount of time, but now that I’m here and inserting myself back into the lives of my friends and family, I’m feeling like 16 months really isn’t very much time at all. Sure a baby was born here or there, new friends were made, a few new buildings were built, but celebrating New Years with friends I hadn’t even talked to in over an year, it was like I’d never missed a beat. It’s actually comforting in many ways, if surprising.
What’s on the agenda now that I’m back? Well, I had planned on returning and looking for restaurant jobs, but as it turns out January is the slow season for restaurants and no one was hiring, so I found my way into the best bakery in town and landed myself a pastry apprenticeship! So, my new life starts with a very new schedule: I rise at 3:10 in the morning, work from 3:45 until noon and then have the whole afternoon to do whatever (so far afternoons have been chock full with other various odd jobs from friends and family) and then bedtime is somewhere between 7 and 9. An interesting schedule to say the least, but I’m finding that I’m much more productive with my free afternoons than I ever was with my free evenings, even though they amount to roughly the same number of hours. So, I’m adjusting and I’m really excited about what I’m learning and am thrilled that in a year or so I will have learned a trade that will make me employable anywhere in the world! Woo-hoo!
So, that’s that! I’m back! I survived! It was great! The world is a big place and my list of places to go and things to do is longer than ever! But, it’s good to be back!
