The Whirlwind Year: EPILOGUE

It's been about a month since I've been back home in Calgary. It was hard enough to adjust to the cold again, but the record snowfall of 25 centimetres the day after I arrived was like a quick, short blow to the head. Painful, and pretty much making me wish I was dead. Apparently, I missed a pretty bad winter.
The tenants who were staying in my condo while I was away were a Filipino family of four. I think they "feng shui'd" my entire place; they moved decorations from one wall to another, re-arranged furniture for no particular reason, and even removed the fourth place setting from all my utensils, sealing them tightly in a tupperware box. I didn't bother to move much back, secretly hoping the new setup would bring me some luck.
Here's what I miss: music playing in every shop and restaurant as I walk down the street. The sun beating down on the uneven pavement as my shoe gets caught in a crack as I walk. All the cars, noise and people that remind me how insignificant I am...until someone yells my name from across the street. People relaying the funniest superstitions, like how it's bad luck to walk the same route twice in a day. And how a crazy downpour combined with a rainbow means there is a wedding somewhere amongst hyenas. Yeah, don't ask. But I miss it all.
The newsroom I work in is so quiet now; my voice could carry from one end of the office to the other without even raising it. I miss being in a place where I wasn't considered the loudest in the room.
I've been out a few times since I've been back and random people have told me how bored I look each time I'm at a club. The music is old. Muzungus can't dance. And conversations seem ten times more mundane. To the point that I just drift off into my own little world. Making fun of the fact that while most people here start their sentences with something like, "When I went to the gym last week....", I can start my sentences like, "When I climbed Mt. Kenya a few months ago....".
All of a sudden, everything I was warned about would happen when I came back -- the sameness, the disconnections, the boredom -- was happening. And the culture shock of coming back to Canada became way worse than when I first went to Kenya.
Still, friends have pointed out that I have an "African glow" since I've returned. I'm guessing they don't just mean the tan. I have to say, despite my sadness at leaving that continent, I do have an odd spring in my step. Nothing scares me anymore. Not my work. Not the thought of leaving my work. Not the idea of moving somewhere completely foreign to me. Being by myself doesn't scare me. I relish the moments I have on my own: writing, thinking, eating, singing. And while everybody around is always scrolling their blackberries, much like I used to do, I tend to leave it in random places without bothering to get up if it rings these days. I might miss waking up to all those palm trees swaying in a light breeze, but in those last few moments right before I fall asleep each night , they still fill my head and my dreams. And that's when I smile the most.
After giving me a hug the day I returned home and saying how much she missed me, my mom proceeded to go about our day just like any other.
"Let's go grocery shopping," she said, like I'd only been gone a week. "By the way, you've gotten very tanned and you're the only person I know who has come back from Africa bigger than when you left."
I laughed out loud.
"No no! It's a good thing," she back-peddled. "You were too skinny, now there's some weight in your face." Sighhh, words only a mother could utter with a straight and earnest face. Yup, I was definitely home. For better or for worse.