Onwards and Upwards

So here I am. I’m happy, I’m kind of healthy (I’m actually becoming a professional sick person), and I’ve got a job. The dust has settled. It’s been about two months since I’ve returned so it’s time to regale you with life after Germany.

My last week in Germany was spent on the couch with something flu-like. Not ideal. Towards the end of the week I was able to get back to a somewhat functional, though still quite sick, state of being. I gave and received countless hugs. I said my goodbyes. Then I boarded a plane. Then another one. And one more after that.

The flights were not eventful which was nice. I have a hard time sleeping on planes so I was awake the entire time, though, which meant I got pretty run down towards the end. On the last flight I spilled Coke all over myself, which was the only really interesting part. The flight attendant was a saint. She helped me clean up my seat and myself. She gave me a blanket to sit on and a blanket to cover the unfortunately placed wet spots on my pants. And then I was home.

I still had a whooping cough and jetlag reared its ugly head (I was up before 7am and tired by 4:30pm). My first few days were spent hacking, driving everywhere I possibly could (I missed driving), eating, and seeing people. After the brand newness of it all wore off I felt pretty out of place. Things were so familiar yet I felt like a tourist, a guest. I didn’t quite belong anywhere. I was okay if my mind and body were actively engaged in something but any time I had to myself my heart sank and I felt lost. After a week of that, I was a little more readjusted. I was still home in Bradenton since it was Christmas time. I felt better but I also started avoiding anyone that wasn’t blood related to me. It wasn’t a dig at them at all, I just couldn’t get my head in the game.

Then, it was time to start the whole process over. I left Bradenton and headed back to Orlando. As with Bradenton, I spent the first week in an uncomfortable mood. My home didn’t feel like my home anymore. Thanks to my tendency to accumulate stuff, I was forced to go through everything I own immediately and purge a lot. That was what got me to a better place, mentally. I came back with suitcases full of my life in Germany. The life that felt like it was gone. But it wasn’t gone, because it was right next to me, taking up all my floor space.

I spent a solid five days looking at every single thing I owned, clothes, pictures, old textbooks, papers, knick-knacks. Goodwill made a killing and at the end I was able to fit the life I had in Germany into the room I have in Orlando. It is a perfect hybrid of the old and the new me. It feels weird, a little sad, and somewhat cheesy to say I feel like a different person, but alas, I do. My adult life has felt so modular. There was New York Kay. Orlando Kay. Germany Kay. This is the first time I have had to go back to a former version of myself.

But this isn’t my old Orlando life; things are different. Exactly what I feared would happen has happened. So thankful life didn’t answer my plea. I wanted everything to be the same when I got back but that makes no sense since I’m not the same. I’m not quite graduated, but I’m pretty well started on my post-grad life. All of my friends have either already graduated or are quite close. Everyone has some kind of professional job, including me. Cheryl bought a knife block a couple weeks ago. A knife block. To replace the hand-me-down one we had had since we moved here. That was a college knife block if I’ve ever seen one. Now our knives actually cut things, as if we’re real adults.

I’m working half time as a content writer for an Internet marketing company. How profesh does that sound? Pretty profesh. Since I’m only taking two classes during my last semester, my head is more in my job because it takes up more of my time. I love it so far. I don’t have to worry about paying my rent and I get paid to write.

I think I’m adjusting pretty well. Life is really interesting right now and not so stressful (getting a job will do wonders for your stress level). I’ve found a groove just like I have all the other times I’ve moved in the past. Here and there I’ll find myself wondering what could have possibly let me leave. But life is always moving, changing, evolving. I’ve been evolving steadily since I graduated high school and here I am five years later, still going. I am a 110% different person than I was in October 2013. But so is the rest of the world. You just have to be able to see it. And I see it, baby. Onwards and upwards from here.