Memories

It's been almost a month since my Barcelona adventure ended, yet it still feels like just yesterday I was living with my host family and experiencing so many amazing things. Adjusting back to my old life has definitely been eye opening and difficult. I think I assumed I would come home and just naturally fall back into the same rhythm I was in when I left, but I've figured out that I can't because I'm not the same person I was when I left. I don't mean to say that I'm a completely different person because that wouldn't be true, but like I said in my coming home entry, I have changed because of my experiences and those changes have made readjusting to life back in Texas a little more complex.

Last week I started my job at the Animal Defense League where I was an intern last summer. This summer I am actually being paid and have a Monday thru Friday schedule, which makes me feel like an adult (a feeling that I'm not sure I love just yet). It has helped me get back into a routine, something I think I've been lacking for awhile now, which has made it all the more difficult to adjust back. Getting back into a routine has definitely made me feel like I'm slowly getting back to myself, but sometimes at the most random times, I'll stop and wonder if I really want to get back to my old self. It's not that I don't like my old self, it's just that I feel like if I go back I'll forget everything that's happened to me and all the lessons I've learned. I realize that's impractical because there is NO way I could ever forget the memories I've made or the experiences I've had, but I think I realize that the more I readjust to being back home the more my experiences will just be memories that I can think about once in awhile, as all experiences become. I'm just not ready to let that happen yet. I still want, need, time to remember every part of the past four months and how I felt during each experience before I allow myself to be consumed once again with school, activities and life here in Texas.

One of the most important things in life in my opinion are memories, and I don't think I've ever made so many incredible ones as I did in the past four months. There's a quote that I really feel explains this:

"Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose."

My trip and who I am because of it are things I never want to lose!

xoxo