A mist-fine drizzle coats the sky...Dave Matthews muses on the radio...it feels almost like home today, and god, do I miss it.

I've been itching to travel for so long that I never thought I'd be so homesick once I left. Part of this has to do with the strange microcosm that is the Cambridge universe: not quite British, not quite international, a nice place to visit but a "just bigger than cow-town" village that gets stifling after a few months. Still, part of it is also the growing realization that somehow the damp and the rain and the mountains seeped into my blood until I couldn't separate from them without feeling like I'd pulled myself apart.

On sunny days, I'm transported back to the memories of spinning my wheels under blackberry cane fences on the Burke, cool breeze in my face, light and shadow turning Lake Union into a perpetually shifting tapestry. On damp afternoons, I think about curling up in our cozy Fremont apartment with a book, or nipping out to the nearby coffee shop for a drink and a few hours of tranquil studying.

It wasn't perfect or cheap, and sometimes the endless rain or the unsocial behavior drove me crazy...but it was home in a way that no place has ever been for me. Before this year, I always thought that all of my childhood relocations would numb me to future departures. Instead, I think that I finally found someplace I could settle into -- and see myself staying for good -- and I had to pry my feet from the floor at SeaTac to get on the plane.

Right now, I'm sure everyone's thinking, "What's wrong with you??? You're in Europe! I'd be thrilled to live there!"...and you're right, but at the same time, it's just not that simple. I think that the rapid-fire changes last year really threw me, and to have all of this happen at once is a bit overwhelming (marriage, move, sudden change of career plans, turn 25...). Too, I think that I'm more of a homebody than I knew...