heart ache

I know I'm ready to come home for a while when my heart starts to ache and when I get tears in my eyes when I read the lyrics to Boston's Peace of Mind in an email my sister sends me. And they start out as tears of hilarity because I am laughing so hard at this email, but then I realize how much I miss people and find myself sitting alone in this reading room at nine am on a Wednesday morning feeling my heart ache inside my chest. It's a good thing I am coming home in a few weeks.

Clearly sentimentality has got ahold of me right now, (or maybe it's the melancholy music I keep listening to), so instead of waiting until right before I leave Tromsø for two months, I might as well sum up this past year right now - while the trees bud and the workers strike. I have learned a lot about myself this year. Maybe more than any other year. I have found a good place in this town and things that I probably should have figured out last year or even the year before finally started to make sense to me - which resulted in one substantial sigh of relief about three weeks ago. Just relax, Rachel. And focus. This is how it all goes.

Or in the words of Boston and the self-proclaimed personal philosophy of my sister:

I understand about indecision
But I dont care if I get behind
People livin' in competition
All I want is to have my peace of mind