Post-Mortem

Welp, that was weird.

Here I am, back in The States, eating too much buffalo chicken dip, reflecting on my time on what can only formally be known as a "big dumb island," and, uh, lemme tell you: what a ride. 

I wasn't sure just how different things would be back home, but I'm glad to say that mostly everything's the same. All the bowls are still in the same place, my dad keeps the house too hot, and somehow my car is covered in pollen, despite being in the garage for three months. Hooray for East Tennessee! 

Despite spending way too much time in transit to get back here -- 36 hours total! Thanks, United! -- maybe the most exhausting part was giving the same answers to the same questions over and over.

"It was great!"

"No, I didn't get eaten."

"At no point did I see Crocodile Dundee, although one guy was running around with a whip in the desert, so that's kinda close."

This wasn't exactly a non-formative experience for me, so it's a little weird for me when people ask me questions as though I was on vacation, instead of stuff like, "What cosmic truths did you unearth about yourself?"

The hardest part about re-acclimating to The States has been my sleep schedule. Other than that, it's been jarringly unjarring. I dunno, I guess I was just expecting more. I halfway expected the country to be nuked while I was gone, but that doesn't seem to have happened. 

I'm still trying to process a lot of my thoughts about Australia, so forgive my loftiness and ambiguity. Until I parse all that out though, let me just say this:


It was weird. I'm glad I did it.