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How strange, to wake up in a bed in my parents home and realize suddenly, as it happens every morning, that I am not in Rome. I am so used to the wail of Italian sirens outside my window, I almost don't know what to do with these quiet suburban streets. I roll over and close my eyes and try to picture my apartment again, try to hold on to Roma just for a moment, but it is gone. Sometimes I am left wondering if it was ever real at all.
Pictures have been the most valuable and important memento. I find myself looking through my photos again and again. Each one tells a story and helps remind me of the many incredible experiences I had abroad, and the incredible friends I came to know. The city doesn't dwell in photographs, though, and so even they fall short of bring la mia Roma completely back.
It has been difficult leaving that home, and it has also been difficult coming back to this one. I go to college far from my hometown, and I know from the past few years that it is always a challenge to return home after spending so much time away. Life continues on, and the people and places that once felt so familiar have changed. Every holiday I spend in Seattle I find both comforting and alienating, as I realize that the place I grew up in, and once called home without a second thought, is not really home at all.
Rome could never be home, though, and school in Massachusetts comes with an expiration date as well, so where is home? I think I am at a point in my life where I don't really have one, and am, rather, searching for one. The people are who make a home but a city provides the space and physical memory, the most tangible thing to be missed, to leave from and return to. Thus, I have found, from living and traveling abroad for these past four months, that I am really on the search for home.
I know I will stay connected with the various friends who made this journey amazing. We will never be all together again, or feel the intensity and closeness we had in Italy when we really depended on one another. I am excited to see where our various lives lead us, and to see how we all have grown and been changed by Rome, and by each other. I wonder if we are experiencing similar feelings of uneasy adjustment and complicated homesickness. I also miss their physical closeness, many of them, as we are so scattered across America and Italy. A computer simply doesn't provide the same sense of connection.
Overall, I am in a melancholy sort of of mood, but uplifted by my family and friends here, the holidays, and excitement about the future. It has been best to keep busy and also, when needed, take time to be quiet and try to thoroughly experience a memory of Rome. Because the memories are already fleeting, and in a few short moments I know they will be gone entirely, replaced by new sights and sounds and people and life. The world marches on, and I continue to seek a place that I can truly ground myself in, and begin to call my home.
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