A Jumping-Off Point

I’ve been back for nearly a week—I say back and not home because I’ve left my home there. The days and nights bleed into one another as I resign myself to the fate of living—no existing—in this strange place I used to call home. The walls of my house are a prison of which I’m allowed to come and go with tethered freedom, while the state lines are an insurmountable barricade.

They tell me, “you just need time to adjust back to normality,” but none of us comprehend the term, ‘normal,’ when one sees the vastness of the world. Here is a beautiful place, but it isn’t there. There is where I felt a sense of belonging; in a foreign land where the pleasant people and crooked cobblestone and broad, brick walls beckon my return. There held life and joy. Here I am betrayed by responsibility and smug, antiquated expectations.

There is a price to pay for wanderlust. Is it emotional? –happiness. Is it material? –money. Is it even tangible? –freedom.