home.

Waking up to nothing but the sound of birdsong and wind rolling over the fields and against the windows.

Rolling up the blinds to uncover not the usual sprawl of 15-story apartment buildings and traffic noise, but green grass, blue sky and sun and snow in soft battle with each other. 

After 28 hours of travel and 17 hours of straight sleep... I am finally home.

Open fire, fully-stocked kitchen, loving family-filled home.

I've found myself lingering in my bedroom these past couple of days and trying to get to know it all over again...

 opening drawers, rearranging shelves, leafing through old journals and creating a brand new writing space.

It's funny how brand new everything can feel after just a year away, how you can open your wardrobe only to feel the clothes inside it must belong to some other girl and you could't possibly have picked out these things!

It goes to show how much a person can grow, tastes change and styles evolve as we grow older. I ended up taking a trash bag to my room and purging it of a lot of the things that felt like they belonged to an 'old' version of me.

At the same time it was a delight to peek inside old tins and boxes and uncover forgotten treasures...trinkets gathered from across the world, a vintage plate filled with my Grandmother's jewelry, letters from high school friends...

It's still slowly sinking in that I'm back here,

but it's a good feeling, 

and there's definitely no place like it.