That is happiness

I've been back in Budapest for three weeks now and I'm finding it incredibly easy to slip back into my life/routine here in the city. Normal life for me has returned.

But, the flip side is that now I see the end. This adventure that started out with endless opportunity and a seemingly endless lifespan has slowly yet ceaselessly progressed until this very moment, when I look up to see myself on a plane and the pulsing lifeblood of Budapest painfully slipping into my past. And this realization, that really I've known all along, is a hard pill to swallow - a hard reality to accept. However, I can't continue my days with a cloud of dread hanging over my head. I can't take this precious time in this wonderful place for granted. Instead, I'm challenging myself to live in the moment; let every experience seep into me until they become a part of me.

Tonight as I write this blog post, I have just returned from a birthday party where, in spite of feeling sick and exhausted, I fell in love with a moment in time and with the people who filled it with laughter and joy. I was a part of something and now it is a part of me.

And I am happy.

"I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep."

Willa Cather, My Ántonia