an ending, a beginning; returning home after a long trip

We’ve been home for a month and half now and integration has been…hard. That’s the long and short of it, on a topic I’ve been trying to write about for a while.

We backpacked for 13 months, visited 25 countries, saw and experienced things we previously only dreamt of…it’s difficult if not impossible to replicate that environment at home. How do you begin to adjust back to your old life? How do you begin to catch up on things you missed while away?

To other travelers: If you’re still on your trip, enjoy every second of it. And not because time is ticking and you’re putting off “the real world,” because you’re not. If you want to exchange stories and reminisce when you return, hit me up. 

There were so many pinch me moments this past year - feelings of pure awe, wonder, reverence - and it often felt like a dream. Why though? Why are dreams characterized as temporary and reality as permanent? Isn’t all of it impermanent? I’m reminded of an exchange from my yoga teacher training where someone would say “X is great and all, but what happens when we’re back in the real world?” and our teacher would respond “Who says this isn’t the real world?” It captures this internal struggle I’ve been having lately, on what is real life and possible and what is not.

These initial months of being home are a transition. It’s just in these transitions it often feels like you’re floundering as other people are moving forward linearly and you’re not. Deciding not to go back to our “old lives,” at least not right away, has called for a bit of courage and a lot of blocking out noise. Some days it feels amazing to be doing my own thing and others it’s like what the fuck am I doing. Goodbye linear path, hello figuring it out: exploring a new industry, experimenting with offerings, crafting the beginnings of a small business and brand.

As much as returning home has felt like an ending, it’s very much a beginning. Beginnings are hard, messy, slow. Right now I’m allowing myself to be a beginner.

I’m also incredibly grateful. Not to suggest travel alone transforms (wherever you go, there you are - experienced this a lot), but it does provide the space to cultivate what’s often buried under thick layers of societal pressure, familial upbringing, social norms. We gifted ourselves this space to explore, reflect on our values and now it’s time to see them through. How do we take these experiences and integrate them into this next stage of life? Things I’m currently focused on: simplicity, independence, a mindset shift on what’s important in life, or more specifically what kind of life we want to build for ourselves. These shifts are powerful and manifest in subtle ways.

At the end of the day, my heart really does long for being back on the road. I’ve started posting here again to revisit places we visited and take my time to preserve and reflect. I took a ton of photos and notes on our trip to document things, remember them for how they happened and how we felt. You can follow along here.