Back Here

Sometimes I think that this whole thing has been just one big dream. That I am just beginning to open my slumbering eyes to the creeping daylight pouring through my window. The bright movements and voices of the dream are alive and in full-force playing through my mind. But soon, once my mind becomes fully aware of the day, they'll fade like they always do. And the characters and setting of the dream will be forgotten or thrown in a waste bin in the back of my head.

But it was not a dream. It was reality. Reality normally gets a bad reputation, but this type of reality does not merit a bad reputation.

It merits the truth. That simple saying of c'est la vie can sum it up beautifully and be understood in two languages. Reality can be cruel, gentle, scary, boring, hopeful, understanding, unfair, harsh, bitter, magnificent, among others. This past year in France contains a few of those adjectives listed above. It was never easy, and there were times when I lost all faith in my capability. I guess that is another reason why the past year of my life was not what one could consider a dream, or for that matter even a nightmare. It was just life.

Being back in America is different than when i was back in America after a year in Japan. Back then, it was rather difficult, and painstakingly nightmarish. I had not been ready to leave Japan, and probably needed one more month to tie up all the loose ends of that year abroad. Being home in America was like being in a place that no matter how much you tried, your family tried, you just did not feel right being in. But this time it feels right to be home. For as sad as I was leaving France, I knew it was the right time. There came a point in my year in France, after all the traveling, when I began to just exist, and not really live. I needed to live again.

So why now? Why now do I come online and write about being back?

Because I have let go. I have let go of that quiet part of me that hoped my year in France would be the best year of my life, and I would never want to leave. That yearning part of me that wanted to be part of a family as crazy as the R's. The taste bud that reminded me just how French I was at every bite of cheese, sip of wine, and breaking of bread.

That's not who I am.

I'm Julie Garner, American by birth, French by necessity, and Japanese by dream. Now I am off to start the next great adeventure. Which happenes to be something just as different as a year in a foreign Asian country, trying to wave and accidentally sending someone to their death. Or as mind-boggling as a European nation, constantly on strike, barely ever working, and yet still managing to be a booming economy. For this born and bred Northern Yankee, I am off to the fiery dixieland of the American south, land of secession, fried chicken steak, and Southern Rock.

Clemson University, here I come!