Still Two Selves

I've sat down several times and tried to blog about my trip with Mom, but for whatever reason my heart's not in it. Maybe because it was a relatively long trip and I'm tempted to go day-by-day (which would probably be boring to you anyway). Or maybe because I've entered my other life now.

I noticed when I visited home for Christmas that it felt like I'd never left and that was disappointing to me. I decided I needed to integrate my Madrid experience into my other experiences so that it didn't feel like a thing apart.

The same feeling greeted me when I came home a week and a half ago. It felt like I'd never left. Somehow I have failed to integrate my experiences. Somehow my life in Europe is completely separate from my life in the U.S. and vice versa.

I can feel the two selves struggling within me. The Home Self is slowly rising to the surface, called out of a long slumber by the proximity of loved ones and the blue mountains in the distance. The Traveling Self is slowly fading into the background, for the moment lurking sulkily behind my eyes, drawing my attention to the strangeness of these people I have known all my life.

The Home Self struggles to wake; the Traveling Self tries to resist drowsiness.