shore survival...

I just realized this is my four-month anniversary of leaving the ship.

It's hard to explain the emotions involved with leaving a part of your life behind that has been so deep and defining. You wear connections to people and places that will never leave you. The experiences mark you forever, and change the course of your life. You are never the same.

I am still realizing this.

:: "How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand... there is no going back?" - Frodo, from "Return of the King"