when reality sets in

I've been home a little over a week. It seems I've aged years in the months since I was last home. It seems the world around me has done the same.

The grief comes in waves. The confusion remains constant, along with the shock. I left my heart in Albania, that much has become abundantly clear.

Ferris watching TV with us.

The world is on pause. A week ago, I walked into my home expecting the kind of happiness I felt walking through the door three months ago. The reality of my homecoming was very different. My presence brought with it the future, it seems. Suddenly, my quarantine was theirs, not by choice, but to put it simply, I'm contaminated, so the distancing measures that have been and will be put into place were accelerated with my arrival.

Tensions were high, and I just made it worse. My siblings are eternally irritated that the freedoms they've only just begun to enjoy as teenage, adults-in-training are being stripped away slowly, but surely. My arrival sealed the door, and sealed it tightly. Though I know the kids don't necessarily blame me, I feel guilty that I brought this all upon them. I feel guilty that I'm a 25 year old with no where else to go, a hefty price that my family is having to pay on my behalf.

I don't really know what I expected. All I know is that seeing my dad standing alone to greet me in my big homecoming was the first indicator that things were different. My heart sunk, but I understood, it was a Tuesday, after all. Nothing has gotten easier. In fact, things are slowly getting much worse.

Enjoyed summer for 0.7 seconds the other day.

I've become obsessed with the outbreak. It has alone defined nearly every aspect of my life as of late, in all fairness. However, I realize that my obsession is not particularly exciting or uplifting dinner conversation for anyone, even me. I think I just feel so deeply connected to it, and honestly, I also feel like my other connections have been either deeply affected, or completely obliterated because of it. It feels like it's the only constant I really have.

There was a moment a few nights ago when my sister made a snarky comment about my Covid updates. It came after I had failed at making byrek, something I tried in a moment of sadness and want for comfort and connection. I had woken up that morning to find an empty house. Not that I should have been invited on the coffee run, I am in quarantine after all, but it felt so starkly different from Christmas, when it felt like I was the person to have in the passenger seat. Anyway, I realize I have no reason to have been upset, but it was a day when the reality set in, in one fell swoop. I wasn't in Albania anymore, and the life I had there, the life that still feels like mine, just isn't in my grasp anymore. I was home, but I shouldn't be, and I don't belong here.

There are moments where I think I am at peace with it all, that I am ready to take the next steps in life, whatever they may be. I made the decision that I will move forward with the mindset that I am not going back. If I find something I love during all the madness that is this world and this economy right now, then, when the time comes, I will know that I am meant to stay. At least, that's the theory. So, I'll start my day with a cup of coffee and dive deep into cover letters and resume tweaking. Around mid-afternoon, what I am doing sinks in, and I am quietly reduced to tears, the kind of tears that don't run, but stay in the corners of your eyes, making your view of the world blurry and sting in a way that catalyzes the heartache you've only just managed to contain.

Back in the land of melty cheese.

This morning, I was helping my dad get ready to paint the walls of his bedroom. We started taking down the "EXLINE" up on the walls, the letters I painted years ago, the letters destined for the landfill. My dad handed them to me, and said, "Maybe you can put them up in your place someday," and I will.

It was a conversation that led the realization that I am, in fact, happy to be home. In this moment, I cannot imagine being any place but with the people who make the world turn for me, however bittersweet it may be, however leech-like I may feel. I can't imagine sitting in Albania getting the call that my something is being whisked away to the hospital. So whatever limbo that may mean for me, it's a limbo I need right now.

Someday I will have to move on. Someday I will have to let my life move forward. Someday I will have to find a home with a wall for my letters to hang. Someday. Until then, I will relish in this moment in limbo. This moment where I can't really move forward, no one can, but I also can't move back. I just have to sit and be, be with the people I love in the place I will always call home. It's an incredible opportunity, really. This pandemic has given me an opportunity to strip away all that I gave meaning to in life and left only the things I have had all along. Maybe someday soon I will figure out what in life really deserves that meaning and what has only been wasting space. Perhaps I will come out of this with clarity. Perhaps.

Anyway, here's to the journey that we are all embarking on together, maintaining a safe social distance.