With the passage of time, a move, even a Big One becomes easier. I am starting to pick up French words on television and in restaurants. Some day, I’ll clip them out of the air and make them into collages.

Milestones: I took the bus and didn’t get lost. I wandered into a French bookstore and spotted the book “Snow White”. I successfully completed three transactions in French. One day, I won’t be able to count them.

Nothing scares me anymore.

It’s like when you’re in your first year of college, and October comes around in a flurry of red and orange leaves. You’re no longer bumbling around searching for the bookstore. Or attending orientation sessions and forced ice cream socials. You’re rolling out of bed in pajamas and going straight to class (at noon). Maybe you’ve even stopped calling your friends from “home” everyday. You miss it, you know you’ll return, but the campus is no longer fresh.

When you graduate, home has an entirely new definition.

It’s March. There are still piles of snow everywhere. I can’t tell you how many in inches because they don’t use inches here. A slick layer of ice paves the sidewalks. I am cold and I am sometimes lonely. I’ve attended a few “orientation” events hosted by the same smiling people who were R.As in college.

I know now that home isn’t a place, it’s people. It’s my husband who is soon to come home from work with a bag of groceries he picked out for me. It’s my dog who paws at my leg, begging me to play. It’s my sister, who I talk to everyday on the computer. It’s my friends who email me consistently and send me things from far away (and hopefully, continue to do so!).

When I “graduate” from this place, my horizons will have widened again.