Color me depressed

Well, here we are, back in the United States. I've had a few days to get over jet-lag - although I'm starting to wonder if you ever really get over jet-lag and this is just the way my life is now - and it feels strange to be home.

Before I go on about my time in Australia, let me answer some common questions I've been getting.
My first meal back was at Waffle House at 2 a.m.
The flight back took 36 hours including fly time, layovers and delays. That's a full day-and-a-half.
The first thing that made me cry was seeing how many shades of green there are in the Smokey Mountains.

Growing up 20 minutes away from the nearest city, we always had to drive I-26 between Johnson City and Asheville to and from home and all our activities. Every day on the drive out of the city back home, my mom would sigh and say, "I love living here," as we passed through some of the most breathtaking mountain scenery in the world.

Throughout my stay in Australia, I missed those moments. I would think about the purple mountains capped in snow, the crystalline frost shimmering on the grass of the fields and the sounds of spring breaking through the frost. I would think to Lake Watauga and how the blue-gray sky would turn vivid shades of orange and pink as the mirroring water would turn to an inky black. I would think about every sunset and rainbow I would chase down the interstate and how, more than anything, I missed the comfort of those quiet colorful hills.

It did not take much to remind me, however, that as beautiful as the colors of home are, Australia plays host to a whole different spectrum, one that I know as the weeks march on I will inevitably miss with my whole heart.

Just as you've never seen green until you've experienced summer in the mountains, you've never seen blue until you've walked along Sydney's eastern beaches. Just as the golden colors of the sky create their own scale during our Appalachian sunsets, the reds of the Australian desert create their own rainbow as the sun sets over Uluru.

I have always found comfort in color and light, and when I was at my lowest points abroad - it happens to everyone - I was comforted in the knowledge that the world is the same no matter where you go. It's colorful, it's bright and it shines. You just have to go to the right spot.

Australia's nickname is Oz, a fair title given its vibrancy. And while there's no place like home, and I'm simply overjoyed to be back with the colors I love so dearly, I know it is only a matter of time before I am scrolling through pictures of the Australia's natural beauty and planning my next trip across the world to see it again.