"So what's next?"

I returned to the United States June 2.  Since then, the number one question I have been asked is, “So what’s next?”

Long term, I have no answer for that question.  After I returned, here is “what has been next:”  In the past weeks I have been overwhelmed with the realization that so much will be changing in the next few years.  Over the past few weeks I have gone to the house of one of my best friends and her husband for their house warming party.  The next day I went to an officer commissioning ceremony for one of my friends who was becoming a lieutenant in the U.S. air force.  By the end of the next week I was across the country in Virginia, attending the wedding of one of my very good childhood friends.  And everyday more and more of my friends are getting engaged.

All of this to say, I am stuck in that awkward transitional stage between graduation and knowing what it is that I want to do with my life.  Being back in Virginia, the state I consider to be the place I “grew up,” I remembered, just as I have when I have returned to North Carolina, how much I love the East Coast and particularly the South.  I miss the beauty and the people so much and I know that I want to return there someday.  When is someday?  At this point, that is up to me and God.

But in the end, America and my life here really hasn’t changed that much.  The severe culture shock that I was warned about and worried about really hasn’t hit at all.  After only 9 months out of 21 years of life, the switch back to my culture wasn’t a hard one.  There are many things of the American culture and Americans that I now see in a new light, but the ease of not needing to think about how to act or what is normal is a wonderful feeling.

On to business matters…I am not sure if I will be continuing my blog now that I am home in the United States.  Since I started this blog for my year overseas, I’m not sure that I would have anything interesting to say now that I am back.  We’ll see how it goes.  Thank you all for giving me a reason to write this past year!