I feel as though time has stopped. I’ve felt like that a lot since I departed Sydney a few days ago. It’s a combination of different time zones, emotional exhaustion, odd sleeping habits and anxiety. Singapore is a nexus: I’m not at either of the places I call home. I am getting impatient, too. That pool of anxiety about the flight, the time, the weather. There’s nothing more I want than to just climb aboard and settle in.

So I am waiting in the Snooz Lounge where the American and I spent some time in the middle of our 37-hour flight all those months ago. My body cries out for a nap, but I want to use the time aboard for such things. Outside, a tropical storm is rolling over Singapore, and I am watching the spectacle from the comfort and safety of the best terminal in the world. Little people below race around in oddly shaped carts servicing the Singapore Airlines 777 that just arrived to Gate B2.

It’s been a very emotional few days for me, and I am just spent. It was so hard leaving my family and friends, and it always is. But this was extra hard. I’d spent three months back in home with the whole crew, and so it’s understandable that the bonds are stronger than usual. It’s getting harder and harder to leave them. One day, I don’t know if I will be able to.

But I know that even in this state of fogginess, I’ve been so incredibly lucky to be able to spend this time with my family and friends. And time is the most important thing: you can’t make more of it. All this emotion reminds me that I am alive, that I am loved and that I love. A good friend of mine told me that ‘crying is feeling life physically’, and I appreciated hearing that. These tears are a happy, sad, tired, anxious tears. But the one thing these tears are not is regretful. I have lived these last three months fully, and I am proud of that. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

And so in the midst of wallowing in the sadness of not being with my family and friends back in Sydney, I turn my focus to this next phase. I am about to board a flight back to SFO, back to the place I have chosen as my home, and back into the waiting arms of the man I love. I’m incredibly fortunate to have such lovely people around me in Sydney and San Francisco. When I get there, I will unpack and prepare for the next chapter of my American life. But there’s always a piece of my heart still back in Sydney.