Happy Dance with Happy Tears

Kati just left my apartment, for the last time while I am here - at least for the next four months. I've been instructed to put music on, which I have, a song which Nina and Markus tangoed to last night. I feel like the last few weeks - are they months? - have been full of the best friendships, best conversations, best jokes that I have experienced in my current fuzzy memory.

I feel like I really know what it's like to belong, to a concept of home, to people, to a group.

I've been dancing around, and crying a little and trying not to slip on the chunks of ice Kati and I have thrown on the ground in an attempt to defrost the freezer. The only anticipation of the journey ahead of me (no airline tickets, no itinerary, no reservations, no currency) is to come back and hopefully pick up where I left off.

I remember taking my first plane flight back to Borneo after my first boyfriend, my first love and actually being scared of small things, the propellered aircraft, the developing nation health conditions, because I had my first taste of belonging to someone and not wanting to lose that. The way I feel now is a more developed version of that. I've got small nerves about leaving the comfort zone I've carefully crafted, but the excitement of coming back to the people who make it more comfortable is already moving me forward.