I'm actually a bit shocked at how much better I'm feeling only tens of hours after one of the most traumatic moments in my life thus far. Seriously, I'm almost even feeling a bit guilty for not still being a chocolate mess this soon after the big dump. I can say without hesitation that it was the overwhelming outpouring of love and support from my friends and family that brought me back to life so quickly. I've always known I'm very very lucky to have these people in my life, but this whole bizarro experience has really brought that home for good... and in the process, has brought ME home for good. 

I was never so glad to return "home" as I was last night as I approached my beloved Asheville. Actually, even my first sighting of San Francisco from the plane a couple days ago was a much bigger thrill than it would have been under "normal" circumstances, and for the first time in eight years I felt truly happy to be back in the good ol' USA. 

From San Francisco, I flew the last leg of this epic schlep to Atlanta, where I spent the night with my dear old friend, S. She was just what the doctor ordered that night - S not only fetched me from the airport - again without my misdirected luggage! - but then sat up with me until 3:00am, drinking, talking, giving me tissues for my still-flowing tears, and eventually making me laugh my butt off for the first time in days. I already began to feel the fog and the weight of sadness lift from me like a heavy cloak on a pulley. Before finally crashing that night, I looked again at my emails from my loved ones and had one more good cry - this time not from sadness, tho, but rather from extreme happiness and gratitude and humility. The whole Aussie experience was life changing in itself, but this epiphany was the real life changer here. It was almost as tho I'd been jolted by a defibrillator set on "super-duper-high voltage" - I got my groove back through the power of love - real love!

When I reached Asheville last evening, my posse (F & J & D & N & Z & H & K & J & C) spontaneously gathered in my back yard for a truly wonderful celebration, replete with hilarity, ridiculous amounts of beer and probably the most delicious grilled food I've ever tasted. OK, we could have grilled old flip flops and I would say the same thing - in other words, it wasn't necessarily about the food, itself (tho it was pretty darn yum!), but it was really about the people I was eating with. I knew I was truly home. For good. I couldn't even fathom ever considering leaving all this again for anything or anyone. Period. This is where I belong, and I couldn't be happier with that feeling.

My last post was obviously quite emotionally charged, as I suppose would be a post written by someone on board the Titanic during the last five minutes... in other words, it was written from a place of chaos and trauma and dread and adrenaline overflow, which does tend to draw out the "dramatic" like a poultice on a boil. But re-reading it now, it's kind of mind-blowing to think that it was written less than four days ago. It already seems like something in the semi-distant past, actually - total time warp. The heart is an amazing muscle sometimes - it can be so damn fragile, yet can actually rebuild itself quite quickly under the right circumstances. 

So now on to my new life - a life that suddenly seems to be brimming with exuberance and promise and potential and, most of all, love. Real love. It doesn't get any better than that. I am the luckiest woman on the planet.