Going home after a long journey is always a bit of a riddle for me. Generally, while traveling abroad, I ride a constant high of sorts and thrive off the excitement of the unknown. It’s easy to live in the moment and I’m always certain the experience will catapult me towards a new exciting direction when I return. However, once back, I almost always revert into an old familiar routine which doesn’t really feed my soul. I contemplate questions like, “What’s my true purpose”, “Why aren’t I using my creative talents”, and “What’s the next plan”. I’ll stagnate in a quandary, save up my nickles and dimes, then run off for another fix. Travel is my drug of choice. This is a riddle I’ve wrestled with for years.
Often an extended adventure, especially one involving a third world country, leaves the adventurous western traveler undeniably changed. Sometimes it’s subtle. Other times it can be quite profound if not life changing. Ironically, the return home can be more of an adjustment than the initial arrival at a dodgy foreign airport in the middle of the night. Usually home hasn’t changed much but through the eyes of a travelers experience it may appear oddly different. For the most part friends and acquaintances are generally the same and consumed by work and busyness. Aside of a recent long weekend, job promotion, or last months Bon Jovi concert there’s not always a lot to talk about in relation to where the traveler has been.
Home can be like white bread and head lettuce compared to the curries of India and robust cheeses of France. Difficult communication in a country where few speak English suddenly seems far more interesting than comprehending empty words spoken over alcohol induced rants during happy hour at a local bar.
At first home can be kind of refreshing. A familiar bed, shower, and mindless tv create a wonderful cushy environment. In no time, the traveler, weary from the road, falls back into a predictable monotone pattern of a comfortable yet deceptively stifling routine. The creative spark, fresh ideas, and endless amount of energy, abundant on the road, fade into a lethargic someday I’ll get around to it attitude. With money thin and inspiration dissolving like water spilled on hot pavement the traveler ponders a remedy, the next breakaway, another journey. Optimism tainted with delusion fuels the hope that a solution to life's mysteries is just around the next bend of a hairpin turn on some steep mountain road somewhere, somehow. A chance meeting, an idyllic location, the love of ones life. It’s all out there, just around the next turn. Hobbled by a low bank account focus and energy shift towards acquiring the necessary fuel for freedom, the almighty dollar. After all, there are bills to pay, responsibilities to take care of, and, things you really should be doing. The creative process suffers dearly.
For the long term traveler it’s easy to stay 2 steps ahead of this, that, and just about anything that would rather be avoided. On the road everyone has a story. Some are content to sit in a cafe all day while rolling their own cigarettes and reading semi autobiographical accounts of someone elses morphious adventure. Others make the most out of every moment and experience all a foreign country and culture have to offer. Some are on a whirlwind tour before the money runs out and they're forced to stop somewhere to figure out how they’ll get the resources to pick up and and move on again.
There are those who travel with a purpose, those who travel to run away, and those who just love to travel. For the long term low budget backpacker years can dissolve like sugar poured into a hot cup of Italian cappuccino. Between buses, trains, planes and countless miles walked along unfamiliar ground it can be easy to lose oneself within the freedom afforded by such a lifestyle. The myopic constraints of the so called “Real World” can be excessively suffocating. Adhering to status quo and the rules necessary to climb the ladder become exceedingly unappealing.
For the most part I feel incredibly spoiled, grossly selfish, yet incredibly lucky that I have the luxury to wallow about pondering my purpose while traipsing across the planet. In reality the rest of the world is way too busy just trying to meet basic survival needs. Therein lies the guilt within the riddle. Shouldn't I be doing something more meaningful? But then again, I love to travel....
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