Age 22-
The lantern's light flickered playfully as Temperance moved through her tent to the small makeshift table in the corner. The lantern was one of the few luxuries she had on this particular dig. She was thousands of miles from home once again, diving into a world that was thousands of years old. She sat down on the metal folding chair that was situated at her table, and reached once again for the folded paper beside the lantern.
Carefully, she unfolded the letter, looking down at the words on the paper, she smiled to herself. The night's peaceful silence enveloped her and warmed her despite the cool evening. She adjusted the blanket around her shoulders and read the letter again and again.
A job offer from the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington DC.
It offered steady pay, reliability, a schedule, and freedom to work outside the country on digs of all kinds. She glanced at the date at the top of the letter and sighed as she counted out the days that it had taken to arrive. She then moved to the calendar beside her other papers and ran her finger down the dates, pausing for a moment when she realized what the day was.
Christmas Eve.
It was Christmas Eve, and it had arrived without a mention from anyone else on the dig, though she had noticed that many had gone home for a short time. She just hadn't realized what day it was. She felt a lump in her throat, and her eyes burned slightly as she pushed her emotions farther and farther back. Instead of dwelling on it, she decided to dwell on the words in front of her, the offer of a lifetime.
Her hands trembled slightly and she placed the letter down, smoothing out the crease with her hand. She grabbed hold of a loose sheet of paper and quickly wrote a brief letter of acceptance, noting that she would be returning before the first of the year, and that she would appreciate a week of settling back into a routine before starting work.
Temperance could feel a rumble of excitement in her belly, knowing that she would be going home again. As quickly as the excitement had arrived, though, anxiety filled crowded in, washing away that happy feeling that she had allowed herself to have. She signed her name on the bottom of the letter, and quickly folded it before she could give it a second thought. She slipped it into the envelope they had provided her, and carefully fastened it closed. She placed the letter on the table and smoothed her hands over it for a moment, feeling that she had done the right thing in accepting the position.
She knew that everyone else in the camp was sleeping, but the letter continued to stare back at her and she could feel her anxiety level rising with each passing second. She quickly stood up and grabbed the letter, and her lantern, and made her way to the opening of her tent.
The night was crisp and cool, and the scent of the air was not that of Christmas by any stretch of the imagination. Surrounded by darkness, she couldn't help but feel alone, though that feeling around this time of year was not unfamiliar to her. She took two steps toward the office tent, and her eyes lifted into the sky slowly. She gasped at the beauty above her, the array of a million stars twinkling above her, and her breath was held. With a moment's pause, she reached down and lowered the light on the lantern and was immediately swallowed by the universe.
She had felt small before she had stepped out of her tent, but now she felt positively invisible, a mere speck in the universe that by some anthropological means had the ability to live and breathe in the beauty of the millions of worlds around her. She was both overwhelmed and captivated by the way the stars twinkled above her, and a smile found its way to her lips as she imagined the millions of stars as millions of Christmas lights shining down on her. She could hear her mother's voice in her mind, whispering about angels and laughing with her father.
Temperance felt a sudden chill in the air as she shivered, and the memories of her past turned her smile into a frown as a pall of sadness fell over her. With a deep, cleansing breath she pushed those memories into the back of her mind. She chided herself for allowing those thoughts to enter her mind, and turned the lantern's light to a full burn.
With determination and strength, she moved on to drop her letter in the outgoing mail bin, reminding herself over and over again, that she can never and never will be truly home again.