Re-Entry Blues

I wrote the following short piece sometime during our final days in New York City, as we prepared to pack our bags one last time. I was obviously not excited about winding up our Big Adventure, but I was surprised how quickly I bounced back once we got home. I’ve still got the travel bug — bad — but even after a few weeks, I’m still pretty okay with being here. Maybe the anticipation of the end was worse than the actual end itself.

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There were so many times while we were traveling that I was tired, dirty, exasperated, homesick, and/or just desperately in need of a burrito. During these moments, I would have to stop and remind myself how lucky we were to be doing what we were doing, and to savor every second. “Soon,” I would think, “this will be over and life will return to ‘normal’” (whatever that word means).

Now that the time has come to head home, I feel a melancholy akin to what I would experience as a child the day after Christmas. After so much planning, anticipation, and excitement, it’s over. And unlike Christmas, it will probably not happen again in a year, if ever. Even though I had told myself countless times that this moment would come, I have to say it: I’m not ready.

Life on the road is so enticing to me partly because there is no semblance of routine. While this can be stressful too – never really knowing where you’re going or what you’re doing can take its emotional toll after a while – no two days were ever alike while we were traveling, and I loved it. My restless self hates sitting still and doing the same thing over and over again. I realized I was at my breaking point with my pre-trip life when I started to dread seeing the exact same people in the gym at the exact same time every morning, working out on the exact same machines they were on every day. It was just too predictable.

When Pierre and I were sitting in a bar in Manhattan feeling morose about being more or less done with our travels (for now), I told him that the only way I could see re-entry being palatable was to plan something special for ourselves when we get home. We still haven’t figured out what that will be, but I’m pushing for a puppy! One thing I know for certain is that I need to find a way to keep daily life at home as fresh as possible. Of course I know there is no way to replicate the excitement of going somewhere new every single day, but I feel inspired to explore the place where I live a little more; to venture outside my comfort zone and explore new things in my own neighborhood and around the Bay Area. (And you know, that would be a lot easier to do with a puppy… ahem.)

The other idea that’s crossed both of our minds more than once is to just keep going. After all, one of the biggest downer realizations I’ve had on this trip is that my travel bucket list hasn’t really shrunk much. Obviously we saw amazing places over the past eleven months, many of which I had been dreaming of visiting for years, but the more I saw, the more I wanted to see. I now know that I could probably spend my whole life traveling and never get to visit all of the places on my (ever-evolving) list. I guess I have no choice but to start planning my next trip! (Mongolia, anyone?)

Since the current plan is to go home for the foreseeable future, though, all we can do is look on the bright side. We won’t have to wear the same slummy clothes every day. We can cook for ourselves. We’ll get to meet our new baby niece, born to my brother and his wife while we were on the road. We can have burritos whenever we want.

One of the perks of going home: fro yo, with the works.

Best of all, we’ve got some fantastic collections now – Lonely Planet guides, passport stamps, postcards, photographs, and incredible memories. This has been the trip of a lifetime, and we wouldn’t trade the experiences of the past year for anything in the world.

From Chile...

...to Norway...

...to Croatia...

...to Tanzania...

...to Rwanda (where I apparently grew a couple of feet?)...

...to Madagascar...

...to the Canary Islands (where Pierre's hair did its best impression of the Count from Sesame Street)...

...to France...

...to India...

...to Thailand...

…and lots of other places in between, we’ve had the time of our lives. I just wish it didn’t have to end.