I’m sitting in the middle seat of an airplane somewhere over Utah right now, thinking about the past four days. This plane is flying me back home to Albuquerque, returning me to my real world after the wonderland experience of XOXO, an experimental festival in Portland, OR. Though I’m on this plane with a friend, we’re not talking. I peek over his shoulder and see he’s doing the same thing I’m doing: writing about his experiences and what they mean for him going forward.

I’m having a hard time processing my feelings post-XOXO Festival. Two years ago, at the conclusion of XOXO 2016, I’d felt everything was different. It felt like lightning had struck the dam and in the deluge that escaped it, I was swept forward to new territory. There was possibility for the first time in years, and all I had to do was start building.

Since that time I’ve done a lot of hard work: I’ve pushed myself to do things for me that were and continue to be difficult, I’ve grappled with bigger questions about what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’ve started to clumsily build a new world around me. I’ve created great things for myself, found joy in new pursuits, and claimed back my time where I was giving it away too willingly. I’m happier than I was in 2016, and I love and honor that.

But my new world still feels lacking of some things I really want. There are still empty spaces, placeholders for landmarks and monuments that feel like they can’t be built where I am now. My new world is better than before; but it’s still not giving me what I need.

A part of me hoped that returning to XOXO this year would provide me another moment of transformation, that another levy would break and I’d be swept away. I wanted to find myself at the mercy of the deluge, propelled uncontrollably forward into my next territory. I wanted to feel that I could trust in the storm and where it would leave me next. But the skies are clear and the dam remains whole.

XOXO 2018 was great. I feel like I learned and experienced so much that I wanted from it: I got to meet people I look up to, interact with dear friends I haven’t seen in too long, and enjoy all that Portland has to offer. I am bringing back many memories and surprises to share with the people I love back home. But I do not feel irrevocably changed like I did in 2016.

I don’t believe there’s anything that could have been different about XOXO 2018 to have inspired such a transformation. It is not the changes to the festival that really play a hand in this feeling; it’s the changes in me that I didn’t realize had happened. I was naive to expect lightning would strike twice; to demand that the world do the work for me. If I want to find new lands, I’ll need to walk there myself.