Sunday morning in the states

In the blink of an eye, the seven months I spent abroad have passed, and I’m sitting at home again like nothing has happened.

On the flight across the ocean, a bug must have flown through the vents of the Airbus and burrowed itself in my throat because I woke up in America with a cold. After spending a day in bed with a fever, I woke, and two weeks had gone by. Now it’s been three. It’s hard to imagine being anywhere other than home.

Taiwan always felt like that fever-dream that wakes you up in the middle of the night. We got rushed away to this mythical place every few years when school loosened its grip for the summer. This island that wraps you in its blanket of sticky heat the second you arrive and fills your ears with roaring mopeds and screaming elders. And mosquitoes.

When I got there last winter, it felt much less like a dream. There was no sticky heat fogging my brain this time, and no school waiting to snatch me up back home. But as soon as winter left and it started to heat up, the fever broke, and I woke up all the same.

It’s exciting to be back, and in the middle of Spring, at that. I can always count on the Midwest to leave me a taste of last winter in the middle of May. I missed cool, brittle air and 50-degree weather and bloody noses at 3 am. Maybe it was all just a dream, one of those cliche movie endings. Or maybe it was just Saturday night, meaning that home is Sunday morning. If that is the case, that means Monday is coming. In any case, it’s nice to be back.