I play a lot of mind games with time. For instance, I pinpointed the time tonight that made it exactly 3 weeks ago to the minute from when we got up at the Boudeaus on the day with left Nantes. Then I thought about what I’ll be doing exactly 3 weeks from that moment in the future. It will be 7pm on September 7th. I’ll have returned from the PSCS orientation week retreat, likely tired and ready for a night’s rest.

Earlier today I was writing an email to a friend about aspects of our transition back to Seattle. While writing, I paused and had a bit of a descriptive epiphany. Continuing, I wrote, “Some aspects of this are surprisingly easy, making it feel like we were never gone (or just returned from a week’s vacation). Other aspects are kind of Rip Van Winkle-like, as if we’ve awoken from a year-long sleep and certain things have passed us by. Those are harder, of course.”

As I finished writing that it really hit home how accurate this is for me. I mean I can go outside on our street and everything looks pretty much the same. I can fool myself into thinking that the whole French thing was just a dream, or the creation of my imagination. Then I’ll see one of the young kids in the neighborhood, one for whom a year has meant a tremendous amount of physical growth. That’s when I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

A year ago today we ate hamburgers at Quick in Nantes (today’s picture is actually from that day). Seeing the picture, it doesn’t seem that long ago.

I wonder what I’ll be doing a year from now…