Home Again!

My visit with my family in DFW has come to an end and now I'm finally back home again and it feels great!

It's gotten to the stage where I feel more out of place in DFW than I do in Moranbah! lol I never thought I'd be able to say that, but it's true. I use the "wrong" words for everything and people get confused. I feel completely lost and overwhelmed in the grocery store because it's so HUGE and there's so much to choose from! And the traffic...I don't get upset by traffic anymore. It's whatevs for me. But my family! It's so intense! I'm just like "it's ok, deep breaths!"

The weather did not stay nice for me unfortunately. It snowed and iced almost the entire time I was there and the air was frigid. So disappointing! Growing up in DFW, we would get maybe one day off from school a year due to sleet icing over all the roads, and there was maybe three to five times in my entire life I can remember snow falling from the sky (it NEVER stuck!) We would try to make snowmen out of sleet! No joke! So, the first time I saw real snow was in March 2008 actually. Chris was visiting the USA with me for the first time, and it was so unreal that it actually snowed for him! The roads were drivable though and the snow melted after a day. It's done something similar to that every year since then, but this year took the cake! FIVE DAYS of snow and icy roads. I'm sorry, but us Texans are just not cut out for that kind of miserable weather. We were stuck in the house every day for most of my trip because of it. :( I am never, I repeat NEVER, moving any further north than North Texas!! Snow is disgusting. I'm not a fan.

I got to do a lot of shopping, which is always fun. I'll do a separate post about my favorite purchases! I came home with about 15 new books as well. Crayzay! My suitcase was so heavy on the way back that all the wheels broke. Oops. hahaha

So, one of my biggest reasons for visiting home was to spend some time with my grandparents. They've both been in and out of the hospital in recent months and everyone had been really worried about them. I only got to see them about 5 out of the 16 days I was in town, which isn't as much as I'd like but I felt a lot better after getting to talk to them and see for myself what state they're in. Nothing in this life is sure, so I feel good that I got to see them as much as I did. :)

You know, visiting my parents in the house I grew up in is one of the most surreal experiences for me. I remember one day in particular, everyone but me was already asleep and it gave me a moment to just soak everything in. I try to explain what it's like to people and I've come up with a lot of different metaphors, but the best I can liken it to is as if I'm stepping inside a memory, or to time travel. My life in the USA has ceased to exist at this moment, it's dead. I've gone through all the steps of grief over its death and have finally come into my element and accepted my new life here in Moranbah and I'm HAPPY! So, when I visit my family, it feels incredibly unreal. Like visiting a ghost...ah. Every way I say it sounds weird! haha It's definitely a good feeling, but also hard to accept that I'm in reality. That drive home with Chris yesterday definitely felt a lot more like coming home than when I visited my family and it used to be the opposite. I love that. I've come so far. :)