Response to a stimulus, still?

Sometimes you get in a routine and forget where you are living, and then on the way home, as you zone out, you almost walk into two chickens, and then it hits you, my life is a bit different. Sometimes I'm reading a book and could be anywhere and then I get up and the electricity has gone out and the water pump stops working for a few hours. Oh, yeah, my life is a bit different. I'll be listening to some music and then the avocado man with the horse cart goes walking by. I wonder how long it will take before I don't notice those small wonders of living 3rd world. When will I be able to walk by an enormous pile of trash, listening to the scurrying of rats, and not think, oh, yeah, I live abroad. In many ways this is the most normal of my overseas homes. The internet works, I have a real phone, there are actual roads that are actually paved here, the grocery store carries a huge variety of items, I can ACTUALLY get mail!! I have to say the mail thing has changed my life. I knew that I missed mail, but I didn't realize how much. It costs me a bit for the service, but it is totally worth it. Thank you CPS, you have made my life better! I know material things aren't supposed to matter, but there is something to be said for being able to get your favorite smelling candle delivered here.

Being home this summer made me realize that I don't have a home anymore, and I need to do a better job making my foreign home my actual home. This is where I live. I will have my DR residency soon and I think I'm ready to give up my US residency. It's actually quite scary.

I'm loving my solo apartment, but am wondering if it may not be a good idea for me to live alone anymore. I've always been a thinker, close to obsessor, actually and well, having my own place again, for the first time in two years, I realize how little thinking I did in Bolivia, and well, that may not have been a bad thing.