When it is in fact over, you run to Madrid, and it's like you're on Mars. One year of high school Spanish has proven hopeless. You forgot how to say twenty. At night, you greeted with Buenas Dias instead of Noches. Being mute is a state of mind you can appreciate.
Your friends are all out there -- London, New York -- meeting the good people, and you're feeling half-major-FOMO and half-zen. In a strange turn of events, you feel satiated before you even dive back in the world. There's still so many good people to meet, but the ones you have deserve some time. So instead of running around like a charismatic headless chicken, you hope this journey in Europe will be a meditation on the past six months and beyond.
Eventually the thank you letters will roll out, eventually you will rise from anonymity and start talking, eventually there's simply a lot a lot of work to complete by candlelight. But for now, an exercise in documentation and reflection after six months is a necessary exercise.