I can nearly now round up to saying I’ve been gone a year. This is the longest I’ve gone without stepping foot in the mountainous, sunny, historic, and quaint Golden, Colorado. It is also the longest I have gone without seeing my Mom, Sister, Dad, Stepmom, Grandma, Papa, Aunts, Uncles. My support system has been mostly virtual for nearly a year now too. I am reliant on technology, internet connection, facetime, and various mementos to channel my loved ones.
My computer and phone are running low on storage due to an excessive number of photos. 
Thus, I am in the process of deleting the duplicates, the unnecessary photos. Though through that process I am brought back mentally to the time and place that those images were a reality. Fleeting moments full of exploration, comfort, love. From under the St. John’s Bridge in Portland Oregon, to Bather’s Beach in Fremantle, Australia, to the mountainous forests in Colorado. Moments shared from birthday celebrations, graduations, dinners out, dinners in, margarita nights, and everything in between.
I was anticipating more of these moments in familiarity – I was meant to return home in June to celebrate my sister’s 21st birthday. We planned for my return to be three weeks. I long 
awaited to eat a breakfast burrito, drink a wine slushie, order a Bob’s Atomic Burger, hike South Table Mountain, embrace my family, and breathe that fresh rocky mountain air. But to no avail. The flight I would have boarded canceled, and I would have feared being unable to return to this life I have created here.
I love the life I have established here in Dublin. I love the friends I have. I love the place I live in. I love that I am fulfilling a sense of purpose through learning and pursuing a degree in Journalism. But there are still moments that give me pause. Moments in which I wish I could 
hug my mom again, or share a meal with my dad and stepmom, or gossip for hours on end with my sister, or wiggle my body with my best friends. I wonder if this is worth it. If I am here for the right reason if I am pursuing what I want to and if it will all add up to something.
Was it worth it that I was unable to throw one last ball to our family dog Reese before he entered doggy heaven? Was it worth it that I didn’t get to party with my sister as she drank her first legal sip of alcohol? Is this adventure valuable enough to counteract that a year has passed since I embraced my loved ones, slept in a tent, or tasted a perfect bagel with my best friends?
I don’t know the reality of being able to go home. I’m holding onto hope that I can return to sweet Golden, Colorado for the holidays. Though I don’t know if it will be safe. This world 
has always been an uncertain place, though in this present moment of global pandemics, emerging social justice movements and a threatened democracy, this ever-present uncertainty feels even more unstable. This reaffirms in my belief that all we can hold onto is the present moment. That the visions for the future help guide us, and the past is useful in comfort and learning lessons, but all we have is what is here and now. I still get tempted to transport myself.
This spout of homesickness has brought me to revisit various snapshots. This exacerbates this nostalgia for a time and a place in which only exists in my memory. I look at images from a time and a place with people that I cannot return to, that I will never be able to return to. The people smiling or embracing or posing or standing are not the same people I will return to one day. We are in ever-changing constant flux. If only there was a word to encapsulate this transient feeling. Through a quick search, I discovered there is a word – Saudade.
