This is the longest time since I got to Denmark that I've gone without writing. I haven't written a blog post, a letter, or a journal entry in two weeks. I came home three weeks early, much to the surprise of pretty much everyone at home, and I've been so occupied with packing, 23 solid hours of traveling, visiting with people, attempts to sleep, and settling my life that I haven't had time to write. Or maybe I haven't wanted to hear myself think. It's weird to be home; the excitement wore off and now I'm home. Job searching, driving a car, spending too much money at restaurants or movie theaters, watching television... things I hated about living in America. They've come back like a bad habit; honestly, aside from job searching, all of those things are bad habits. It was so easy not to think about these things in a different setting, but here it's all too common and normal. Maybe life in Aalborg was like a pilgrimage, going somewhere so different and isolated from my home to see if I could live without a car on the cold days or read a book when I was bored. It's a state of mind, not the setting in which you're placed... I just have to keep remembering that and writing and discovering new aspects of myself, the family I make in my life, and life in general.
So far, I haven't seen anything glaringly American other than the huge cars, and I didn't need to go to Europe to realize that people are completely ridiculous about SUVs. I just feel so different, you know? The change is totally within, and I've decided to stop looking for differences between Europe and the US. I realized that I haven't been treating the settling down experience here in the same fashion as when I got to Denmark. In Denmark, I made no immediate judgments, gave every bad experience a fair chance, looked for the positive everywhere, and remained really sensitive to myself. I'm so much harder on my home than I would be anywhere else, and I need to lighten up. One obviously upside about being home is that it's home, and I'm with family and friends here. Another thing is that the sun rises at 8:30am and sets around 6. That's about 4 more hours of sunlight than in Denmark, hahaha. I'm trying to keep an open mind and a center. I really am.
Last night, I had dreams about traveling plans gone awry, missing planes, getting stuck in a strange city, calling airlines and being hassled. I realized that I need to wait a little while and settle down before I travel again. My parents are going to take my grandmother to Panama to live with my aunt and uncle in February - I was jealous that I couldn't go with them, but then I remembered my hellish dream and the horrid process of customs. Welcome back to the US, Dani.
Also, on a side note, traveling has wreaked havoc on my body. I never weighed myself in Europe (what am I going to do with kilos?), but I am currently 8 pounds more than I was right before leaving Atlanta. I think I've lost some since the height of my weight gain, which means I gained 10 or more pounds, despite my healthy lifestyle. My friend Michael said that he gained weight in Scotland and his ex-girlfriend Jen gained 30 lbs in South Africa!! Yikes! I can gather a number of logical reasons from weight gain when traveling, but how does one counteract that?
