Absence makes the heart grow fonder

I've had a lot of absence and un-absencing in my life lately. I was absent from this blog for so long because about two days after my last post, my computer decided to be absent (figuratively--I still have it) from my life and hasn't been working. Which was a big barrel of fun during finals and the end of the semester, but I learned how not to be as dependent on my computer, so it was good. It's still not working, but I came home. So computers are no longer absent from my life. Therefore, I can blog again.

I was absent from the U.S. for four months. (Almost four, anyway.) And I'm not absent anymore. I am returned and accounted for, with all my limbs intact, even. And I love England. But I'm still glad to be back. It's nice to realize how much I really do love my home as well.

Oscar my camera was absent too, but because I flew through Dublin, I got him and all his pictures back. I'm so, so happy about that too.

I've been absent from a lot of people's lives lately too--people that I really care about. And now I'm trying to fix that absence and make myself present again. Some of that was because I was across the world, but some of it is just my own silly fault. But I'll just try again.

I'm glad that finals and tests and papers are now absent--for a few weeks anyway.

I learned that I actually really like the traveling process. People traveling are absent from things and people that they know and love. They're absent from the real world. And that absence causes some upheaval and insecurity and a desire to feel grounded somehow. So a lot of times, travelers are willing to open up and reach out to their fellow real-world-absentees in the absence of the familiarity they know. All you have to do is show an interest in the life your fellow travelers are absent from, and you make new friends. I made ten new friends on my trip back to the U.S. just because we were all absent together. And I learned a lot about all those people, from the little two-year-old Irish girl making faces at me all the way across the Atlantic to the Bostonian man on my flight to Salt Lake, who just wanted to talk non-stop about how much he missed his wife and three kids.

Though traveling made me absent, I think I was more present with other people than I have been in a long time.

It's so good to be home.