Being here amidst my things and my life, everything feels both comfortably and scarily familiar. It was fun to walk into my apartment and realize with fresh eyes how cozy and full of pretty non-hostel-like character it is! It was also unexpectedly reassuring to discover how naturally like home my home actually felt. As happy as I was to be traveling all of this time without a thought for the things I'd left behind, it was still pretty nice to see them again. Even NYC with its crazy city buzz has felt welcoming to me somehow - this being perhaps a nice perk of returning during the holiday season..?
The scary part of all this warm familiarity is knowing how easy it will be to pick up exactly where I left off - how quickly that "as if I never left" feeling sets in when you return home. It worries me to think that all the things I saw and did during what seemed like such a luxurious stretch of time before I left in early October, will become just part of a nice story I get to tell (to whoever is willing to listen) in a matter of moments. How can 2 1/2 months of life-changing adventure transmogrify into nothing but a blip?!!
And yet I really hope it doesn't. I really hope that this time, having opened myself up through travel in a way I never had before, I will internalize some of what I've learned, about the endless possibility of beauty and my own capacity for wonder. About remembering how to be wide eyed in the world, and the opportunity this affords to rediscover your sense of self and what you have to give, which is really one of the best things about travel, I find ... how it inspires and excites you to want to be your best self.
Or, as the quote from Kent Nerburn more precisely puts it:
“This is why we need to travel. If we don’t offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull... The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.”
So I come home with the hope that I can keep pursuing that "edge" even as I settle back into a life of routine full of family and friends and a dog that I love. Oh yes, and work. Routine itself is not inherently evil or bad, I just have to find the one that is right for me. This trip has given me renewed enthusiasm for figuring out what that is, and also some clarity as to what that might be. Knowing too that continuing to travel as much as I can in life will be a big part of it. Hey, this blog may very well become a series!
Till then... I wish everyone a happy, full-of-blessings New Year!
Love,
Karen
5 comments:
This may be one of my favorite of your travel blogs. So honest, and well spoken, and real. I'm sure many can relate to an iota of what you're saying: how quickly what has been absent, becomes achingly habitual and routine, again. Maybe the next blog will hold the KEY to how to avoid this. I'm waiting ...
Transmogrify? I love learning new words from you. They're always soo sesquipedalian . . .
You're last blog really moved me. I know what you mean about the "feel like I never left" feeling but you really shouldn't concern yourself with things like that. It will come and it will go. The fact is, is that you DID go on this tremendous trip and you DID have these amazing learning experiences and even if you never tell anybody about it ever again, the memories and experiences are still your very own and have officially affected you. They are yours, and yours only, and no one else will ever understand what you went through. That's what's so amazing about adventures like yours. So private, the feelings and thoughts you had in situ. And every time you are feeling a little low or pensive or just reflective, you can think back to that time capsule in your head and remember the twinkle in your eye and the excitement in your bones. It always does the trick.
I don't write as well as you do but I hope I was still able to accurately convey my philosophy on the importance of traveling. If you didn't get what i was trying to say, let me leave you with these words. . .
i love you! and am proud that i have such an amazing sister that can go out into this crazy world alone, fearless and open to wild experiences. You go, girl!!!
loving you, always,
leeron
Now, where are the pictures?
You have your memories with you and what do we have? Anyway, we are all very proud of you and very happy to see you back home. Carefully, plane you next trip. You are doing it for both of us now. We all become richer from your trip experiences.
Love you much
:-)
I adore that quote at the top of your blog from Kent Nerburn. Glad you connected with me let's toast to part deux of your travels. :)
Hola!! Today is February 2nd and you are going back again to South America. I wanted to write in your blog a good luck post but I guess we can only comment on your postings.
Hope you have an amazing time!! and come back!
All the best!! will miss you!!
Pali
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