Oh hello again, Italia

So I'm sitting here on the same old couch that I sat on the night before I said said goodbye to my study abroad experience, officially making it a beloved memory. I woke up (late) this morning having to remind myself where I was, and feeling Massimo beside me gave me that feeling of contentedness that has been absent over the last five months. Feeling groggy and jet lagged, the illusion keeps coming to me that I never even left here, that it's just another weekend that I'm back to visit Massimo's house from Florence. It is in moments like this that solidifies the realization that I'm living parallel lives in both places; pieces of my heart remain in both places even when I'm not present. I've grown so accustomed to the Italian life that it felt so incredibley natural to me from the second that I began to hear them surrounding me in the airplane, see the usual landscape, the completely different sense of fashion and mannerisms. These things are no longer a part of "culture shock," and I no longer see them in a different light; they have become a part of who I am. Immediately I'm able to switch from one lifestyle to the other, and like a chameleon I adjust myself to my surroundings in a matter of seconds. Then I think about my return to America, and how much has happened since I returned from studying abroad. The semester was so crazy packed with school that I barley had any time to think or realize that I had made such a drastic change so quickly, and time passed before my eyes and it was already time to come back. While I had an amazing semester with my friends back at home, I found myself having problems fitting back into my own culture, throwing my habits completely off track. I had returned to the home that I had grown up in and all the typical parts of my environment that had defined my life since I was born, and now it's as if that definition has been completely rewritten. Not being able to connect with what I was once used to really threw me in a funk, and I realized that my heart was truly split into two. The life I lived here became such a big part of me, and the experiences that I had have eternalized within myself. This is the biggest difficulty with allowing yourself to become completely enveloped in another culture or way of life; it comes along with the greatest pain upon separation, however you teach yourself how to put the two identities together in order to form one that intertwines your favorite aspects of both. I know it's going to be an insane experience returning to Florence and seeing everything that I saw everyday, and the people that I love so dearly; I know that it is going to be a shock to walk down the old streets, to see the door of our old apartment, to return to the places that defined my experience there....but I know that this is another adventure, and I am so grateful to be able to return to the home that encompasses my heart. I've changed the name of my blog, because while I know that I am no longer studying abroad, I am certain that I will always be a wanderlust. My travels and forever growing captivation of this vast world will never cease to exist, and my writing will continue on.....