Don't dress for success or even at all.

Fake is fake and fake is bad.

…Words of wisdom from Johanna while we sauntered through Wegberg eating our ice creams in the sunshine, racing to finish them before the sun did. How I've missed the refreshing ice cream and HOW I've missed my dear Johanna. Last night we snuggled up in her bed and I tickled her back while we listened to Greg's Tagebuch and she fell asleep tucked into my arms just as if I hadn't been gone a single day. My emotions have been swimming in the murkiest of places since being back in Germany and I'd try to explain it, but it's putting me in a muddle just thinking about explaining it. I've barely jotted down more than a few paragraphs in my journal since I've been here and for anyone who knows me, they know that's not at all very much. The outer layers of my emotions tell me not to write and not to think about any part of my journey and the residing emotions from May 20th, because they are saving me from all the tears for a time when I am stronger. The point where my mind allows me to begin from is when I lugged myself and my two suitcases, with the help of the train conductor, from the Erkelenz train station and heard Jojo scream my name. I looked up and saw her running through all the people with her arms open wide, wearing her new blue dress and a huge smile across her face. Then came Pia and Gereon and Britta. After that, I slept. And slept and slept. On Friday, I woke up in the morning and never got out of bed. I half slept all day until 6, had some dinner and took a walk and then slept all night too with the help of my old friend Nyquil. Although I was very tired, I think part of me was uninspired to get out of bed and live in my day. I just kept rolling over and shutting the day out. Depression always hits me when I first move. It doesn't necessarily mean that I've made the wrong choice, but it always happens, that heaviness that you try and pray away. Saturday was my first day feeling remotely like myself and I enjoyed it fully. I drove with the Heinens to the Eifel in the mountains to get their new puppy! 

Most mornings, the coffee cup I choose to drink from determines a lot for my day. It seems silly, but for coffee lovers, perhaps it makes sense. This morning I reached for a blue cup with seagulls on it, but the blue suddenly seemed too blue and too dark and my eyes lit instead upon a powder blue cup with a big daisy painted across it that seconded as a smile and I just knew I needed a smiling daisy to start my day. Today has been partly work, partly play, and now I need to get to some more work… that's why I'm writing a blog instead. I love procrastination. This is almost like double procrastination too, because I went and got ice cream with Jojo instead of doing my work. But now it's really time. I have to finish my application so I can hand it in this week. Tomorrow starts a scary/relieving week. Scary, because I'm going to find out if I can go to school and when I need to take the math test I've been dreading, and relieving because I'll know results and therefore, what to do from there. This week I'm also meeting with my future boss about the business English job. There are a lot of open ends and a few might get closed this week, so I'm a little on edge! 

It might not seem like it, but I'm happy to be back in Germany. I cleaned my bike today and just gazed lovingly at it for a while. Sadly, I'm no longer the outspoken one you've come to know and maybe love, but instead I'm back to the trying to get out the right words in the right order in this ridiculous language I decided to learn one. It's great fun.

I miss Alaska. More than a crazy amount. But I know I'll come back and I'm taking in where I am in the moment I'm given and learning and growing and enjoying. That's the only way for me to live. 

And look! I've got some new poems! 

Clothed in your love, untamed, no shame
I bore your weight, I wore your name
Proud on my skin I let you in.
Skipping beats and missing breaths
You watched me love you, now watch me press
My cheek onto your chest 
And memorize your face
Oh I knew every corner and line; you were my favorite place.

When you take each mystery you meet and tie them about you just tight enough to breathe, their cords will wind around and twist across and entwine throughout the shackles on your skin to break the bolts that hold you low and lift the corners of your soul that slacken from the weight of all you know and know and know you have to stop, unlock your cage and fly away in mystery.


Nothing else comes from my heart to my brain to my fingers to the pen to the paper like you do. But I don't want to write about you and your eyes and your sighs and the color of your skin with your whispers on my cheek that slip into my ears and wake me from my sleep. 
You and your kaleidoscope of glances, how they caught me and enchanted all the dull necessities of life so I could gaze forever and always and only see you.
Trying to leave you has led me astray; pushed my colored world into a dull, relentless gray, and so I grip on firmly to the precious ideal that our time could be endless and our love could be real.