This is it. It’s over. Today marks exactly 11 months since the day I set foot in Oslo Gardemoen. Today is also my last day in Horten. Happy anniversary. Farwell. We’ve come full circle.

I’ve already said goodbye to Joakim. Now I’ve got the TV set to NRK 1: sandvolleyball verdensmesterskap i Stavanger. It feels like a throwback to the first days here, when we watched the OL matches. The world doesn’t stop, but it revolves round and round; I suppose life is like that too.

I wonder what Pappa’s last bad joke would be. I wonder what would be the last thing we would laugh at. I wonder what is going to happen tomorrow on Bones.

A few hours ago Alexander Rybak came on TV, and I realized that might have been the last time I got to see “Fairytale” on public television. As overplayed as it is, even it has snuck its way into my heart: a little something uniquely Norwegian, a little something belonging only to us: 2008/2009. A little something that only I—and perhaps the other partakers on this journey—will know, love and appreciate.

This has been an incredible year, and I’m glad to have finally experienced what I’ve always dreamed about—if only for a short 330 days: a complete family, a dad. I don’t know why, but it’s always so hard to say how I genuinely feel, and I don’t really know if I have it in me to tell him all the thing I want to say when I leave.

An uncomfortable pressure at the back of my throat is pushing me to stop writing, so I will.

And a parting question: I know I will come back, but will I come “hjem?”