The Quilt

It's been a month and a half since I left my home, my place of comfort. It's a process, you see. First you prepare yourself before you leave, saying goodbye a week in advance so you don't forget anyone. Then you leave, pushing all the seconds thoughts out of your head as the plane leaves the ground. Once you arrive to your new home with your new family, you being the process of settling in, unpacking, sight-seeing. You get acqainted with your new surroundings, taking in how different everything really is. After a week or two, the homesickness kicks in, leaving you a little scared. If I'm homesick already, how am I going to last a year? That's when you tell yourself that it's only been 2 weeks and to stop being such a baby. You skype with your mother, your best friend. You realize all the moments you took for granted really do matter once you're gone. You piece together all the little things you wish you would've done before you left, making one big quilt, only this quilt doesn't keep you warm at night. This quilt only makes you miss home that much more.

But there's hope.

Inside each of us is a strength that we find at some point in our lives. Usually we find this hope after a drastic change, loss of a loved one, life-altering experience. This hope guides us, it gets us through the day. It's a hope we grow into because it is very powerful. It's a hope that allows us to believe that we can do something we never thought we'd be able to do. It's a hope, like a quilt, only this quilt is comforting an warm. It's the quilt that covers us during the coldest of nights, allowing us to sleep soundly so we can tackle the hard days to come.

For me, there are more good days than bad days, of course. It's just every once in a while that I tuck myself in with my comforting quilt, burrowing my face deep into the colored fabrics, knowing that there's hope for me. There's hope for all of us.