An early goodbye.

I woke up a couple mornings ago in my hostel in Kathmandu sick and sore, and I realized something. I'm ready to go home. A complete 180 from everything I've told everyone since the earthquake happened. "Yep, I'm good. I just want to find a way to volunteer." It doesn't really matter what the logical side of me wanted to do. Or how badly I wanted to say that I stayed and helped pack boxes or deliver rice to villages. My brain decided it was time to go home. I admit it, I flip-flopped. Completely.

So I took my travel insurance up on an offer they had sent via email. If I sent them my original flight info, they would book me new flights home. I figured it would take a few days to process. Paperwork. Insurance. Blah blah. Nope. Only a few hours later I got an email asking me to confirm I could leave the next day. A few hours after that I got my flight itinerary. I'm going home! And I'm going home perfectly in time to surprise my mom for Mothers Day. It just feels like the right time. It took a little while for it to sink in, but now hours before the flight, I'm so excited!!!

Throughout this whole earthquake thing I've maintained that I think it's been worse for the people who are a) far away and only have the news to go on and b) have actually been affected or hurt by the earthquake. Other than some moments of fright and a trek that ended too soon, I definitely don't put myself in either of those categories. So I'm fine. No need to worry. There are tons of people dealing with more stuff than I am.

But apparently my brain just needed a little more time to process. And I'm not sure I can even put words to how it feels. Other than it's ready to be around familiar things and people. Last night it didn't even want to go hang out and have some beers with the other people at my hostel. I think that was the moment I realized that "yeah I really should go home." Self, this is one of your favorite travel things to do, chill with new people.

Part of me keeps thinking: Is there more you could have done? Surely you could have pushed through your funk and done more to help? Well maybe. But I guess we'll never know. I do know that there's a lot more I can do as a happy productive self in the USA than a mopey sick self in Nepal.

So for now, I will sit here feeling lucky that I have the option of just taking a flight back to my wonderful friends and family, and I know I will be back to Nepal. I enjoyed myself so much in this country and have so much love for the Nepali people, there's no way I won't be back. So it's really not a goodbye, its more like a see-you-later.