I get home from Haiti, sleep and rest and find my way to my favorite pub so I can drink my favorite beer. It is warm outside, and while I sit at the bar reading my magazine and drinking my Pilsner, I see a man walk through the door wearing a leather motorcycle jacket and carrying his helmet. Everything inside my head stops for a few quick seconds, and I think to myself: it’s time now, time to ride, time to get back on two wheels and open the throttle and become ever-so-aware of my own mortality.

I’m not sure how to be, now that I’m home. Everything inside my head is different, changed, altered in some blurry sort of way. I’m happy to be home, glad on so many levels, and yet there is some part of me that isn’t here right now, and I’m not sure that part of me is ever going to return.

I’m ok with that. Ok with all of this. I have spent two weeks of my life doing the best work of my life, and now that I’m home I think about how I can keep doing this, keep doing the best work of my life. I write things down, think about things, put things into motion and take steps forward.

I knew this would happen, knew this would happen a long time ago – knew that I would find the work that matters to me. I smile, more now, and I take steps toward doing more amazing work.

At home, sitting inside the plush-ness of walls and running water and electricity, I drink beer and look outside and see a tree that is sprouting buds. I think about how it is February and not time for this, and I am reminded of Jefferson and how he defied the best of medical diagnosis and went home with his mother after five days of anticipated death.

Life is awesome and funny and odd. I am thankful—almost always—for my life, and now that I’m home from Haiti, I am even more thankful for this very delightful life of mine.