Home sweet home.

We've been back in Romania for two weeks as of yesterday, after a lovely 2.5-week trip back to the great American Midwest.  It's kind-of hard to believe that our time back in that home was such a short time ago.  Jet lag seems to create some sort of time warp, and we've settled back into our regular schedules of life here in Lupeni with only a few nights of 2AM "Parks and Recreation" marathons.  (Yes, watching endless episodes of Leslie Knope escapades is the recommended Organ method for overcoming -- or at least enjoying -- jet lag.)

But more seriously, the strange disparity of it is hitting me hard this time.  I am so happily settled back into life here.  Catching up happened quickly after only a couple weeks away, and now the rhythms of going to the office, the cantina, church, visiting friends, making dinner, laundry, dishes... they're all back in place.  And yet just two weeks ago, we were on the other side of an ocean.  With our families.  Some of our oldest friends.  Burritos were easily accessible.  We drove on American highways and heard only American-accented English and ate American food and walked into American shops.  It feels like a dream -- a weird, boring-yet-comforting-and-oddly-jarring-and-familiar-at-the-same-time, dream.  It was a lovely visit, but I don't miss it.

Because now we're here, back in this other world, speaking American-accented Romanian and eating Romanian food and walking into Romanian shops.  Burritos are not easily accessible.  The United States feels a world away.  And yet as I write this, back in the U.S., my brother and sister are visiting my grandparents, and my former roommate is doing her seminary homework, and my dog is doing whatever he does on a Saturday afternoon... all as I sit here, on the little couch in our apartment in Lupeni, thinking about these worlds existing at the same time.

It didn't seem strange to me until recently.  Jack and I have decided (mostly) that we'll stay in Lupeni for two more years and return to the States at the end of 2017.  I just started actively looking into graduate schools, and I think that's what's making this so strange -- knowing that we will be choosing to leave this world, the one that feels so much more real and so much more like home -- to return to the dream-world of family and burritos and driving and Donald Trump (sigh).  I am not entirely convinced it's the right decision, hence the hedging of bets in the announcement -- but for the most part I am, and I feel peaceful about it even though it makes me incredibly sad.  I missed Romania while were in the States this year.  I am not really looking forward to returning to the U.S. permanently, except for the people I love there (and the burritos).  I have come to prefer most everything about our life here in Romania, honestly.  So two years from now, as I sit on a (hopefully larger) couch in an apartment somewhere in America, perhaps it will bring me comfort to know that these two worlds will still coexist.