After 6 weeks away from home, I’m overcome with a complete change in my perception of reality.
It’s a strange feeling, returning from a trip like that. If you ever moved away for college, you’ve probably experienced something similar. It feels nearly impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t done it.
But that won’t stop me from trying!
A Separate Life
We shall not cease from exploration…
The best way for me to describe it is like I lived a completely separate life. I met new people and lived in a completely different part of the world entirely removed from any sense of normalcy.
It’s such a strange feeling to go that far away from home for such a long time. In college, I still lived in the same state and country, even if I was at least 3 hours from my nearest family member and 8 hours from my hometown.
Romania was a good 24+ hours of traveling, not to mention a different culture with a completely different language.
The people I met there, both from Romania and from elsewhere, were never present in my life before. Yet I saw them every single day for 5 weeks. I ate with them, worked with them, shared a room with some of them.
When you get into a routine like that, it feels like your whole life. You grow so used to the same people and places that it feels like you’ve always been there. It feels like you’ve always known them, or at least like you’ve known them for months, if not years. You develop inside jokes, learn about each other’s beliefs, ideals, goals, and pasts.
And then it all just… ends.
You reach the last day or two of your trip, and you realize that it’ll never be like this again. This new life you’ve grown so used to will now just end abruptly. Everyone will get on a train, ride to the next station, and go their separate ways.
You might never see these people again even though you feel like you’ve always known them. Suddenly your whole life is coming to an end, and then you’re back home where you used to be.
Now, it’s not all bad. I’m making plans with some of the people I really got along with. I’m meeting some of them for Christmas (hopefully), and will be playing online games with others. But we will never be all together in that same place again.
Those experiences are nothing but memories now. This separate life I lived for 6 weeks is gone.
Now I’m back to my normal life, and it doesn’t really feel the same either. These experiences have changed how I see the world forever. I’m sure every other trip will feel the same way, too.
Back Home
… and the end of all our exploring…
While I was away in Romania and on my extended trip afterwards, I grew to miss something that I don’t usually care about when I’m home.
I wanted to do nothing more than jump in the lake in my hometown and eat some huckleberry flavored ice cream.
I never really go out of my way to find anything huckleberry flavored when I’m home. Yet as soon as I lost access to it, it became a constant desire. I took it for granted at home.
All that tells me, though, is that I enjoy being home as much as traveling. My friends, my family, and even Coeur d’Alene itself called me back.
I desperately want to return to many of the places I’ve visited. I long for certain foods, atmospheres, or simple feelings that I got from being in those countries.
Yet something as simple as access to huckleberries, a staple of western North America, made me want to return.
The draw of the comforts of home eventually becomes as strong as the desire to see other places.
Before I left Romania, I had a few people ask me if I was excited to go home. My answer was often, “I’m ready to go home, but not excited.“
Of course I love home. I love the mountains that tower all around us, carpeted by lush evergreen trees. I love the giant, cold lake that’s always waiting for us to jump in. And I love the special things, like huckleberries, that we can only get here.
But I also love travel.
I love going to Predeal, Romania, and seeing the grand Bucegi mountains that are somehow taller than the mountains at home, and surrounded by forests rife with the threat of bears.
I love going to Dubai and exploring a sprawling, vibrant cityscape I never thought I’d see.
I love the simple beauty of the Irish countryside, with its constant rainbows and endless pastures.
At a Crossroads
…will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
– TS Eliot
I think these experiences just make me appreciate home even more.
Sure, I would never want to sit still in Coeur d’Alene my whole life. I want to go see the world. I want to camp out in the woods, meet new people, see new sights and experience new cultures.
But while I enjoy the taste of mici or papanasi, it also makes the experience of coming home and eating some huckleberries that much more enjoyable.
Swimming at the beach in Dubai is amazing, but how about jumping off the rocks on Tubbs’ Hill?
I see a lot of travel bloggers and travelers living nomadically. They don’t have a permanent home, and just roam from place to place wherever the wind takes them.
I’m not sure if I could do that. I like returning home for a bit after every trip. It’s like a way to recharge the batteries and take a load off for a while. Of course, there’s nothing stopping a nomad from returning home, either.
I’d love to give the nomadic life a try, and I think I got a small taste of it after I left Romania.
But I also love home just as much as I love being anywhere else.
