It’s been three months since I came back to America. I’d like to think that I’ve nearly readjusted to the accents and the fat-tastic food. What I am still struggling to come to terms with is the fact that I am living in a country where travel dreams are trumped by the American dream.

I can see the eyeballs rolling back in the skulls of my very dearest friends. No worries, I’m not here to talk about traveling. I’m here to talk about not traveling. It’s an idea I am struggling to get comfortable with despite the fact that it is actually my self-determined, personal goal.

You see, I came back to the states with the intention of sitting still for a minute. I wanted to get my own space, unpack my suitcase, sleep in my own bed every night and start my career. Naturally, I set out to actively pursue those goals. As it turns out, I guess I wasn’t quite as ready for those changes as I wanted to be. In short, my brain appears to be stuck on travel-auto-pilot.

After coming all the way to Colorado to settle down in peace, my brain believes I am still in-transit. Up until yesterday, I was still involuntarily brainstorming ideas about teaching English in Taiwan and eyeballing the U.S. map to see which of the other 50 states might be worth checking out. Even though I have been determined to live here, to work here, to spend several consecutive months if not years here, I could not stop these thoughts from rolling around in my head.

Another thing I have been unable to do is unpack my suitcase. At the moment, we’re housesitting and have been doing so for the past month, and the house is beautiful. We have our own bedroom complete with a closet and a dresser, and yet, the majority of my clothes remain tucked in my suitcase. I have about three outfits that I wear over and over because I just can’t justify digging into the bottom half of my suitcase. But don’t confuse this odd behavior with laziness.

You have to remember that I’ve been living out of a suitcase for two-and-a-half years. My brain has been trained to know that every time I take something out, I will just have to put it back in later. Unless the weather changes drastically or I run out of clean clothes, it just doesn’t appeal to me to rummage through my bag for the sake of changing up my wardrobe. I’m also still very uncomfortable with acquiring any items that aren’t necessities, especially if they won’t fit into my suitcase, despite the fact that I have an entire Subaru Forrester worth of personal storage space.

Thankfully, my recent job search and newfound enthusiasm for finding a place to live (which I can tell you will be somewhere in Golden if you’re interested in visiting soon) has helped me come to terms with the fact that it’s okay to leave my shampoo in the shower when I’m done with it.

Unfortunately, I still suffer from using Australian colloquialisms and making the assumption that everybody knows what a capsicum is.