Welcome Home?

Homesickness hit me almost immediately.  I stared out the window, feebly watching as the transcendent skyline of Seattle slowly drifted from my oval window.  Initially, the high brought on by the sheer awe of the new experiences counteracted this sickness, but over time, once tourist attractions bordered on the mundane and it took serious motivation to wake up for sunrise, the sickness began to ache again.

 

I would constantly dream about coming home.  Literally: almost every week I would have a dream about coming home and playing with the dogs, eating lunch with my friends, or going in the hot tub. I would spend hours planning out my daily schedule for Mercer Island, down to the finest details, like what I was going to eat for breakfast, or what deodorant I was going to buy.  Otto and I regularly discussed the topic of “the first thing we were going to do when we step foot in our house again.”  I know what you’re probably thinking, but don’t even start.  I know it is a waste of time.  I should be spending my time enjoying the miraculous medina of Marrakech, not scrolling through Evo and trying to decide what skis to buy next winter.  The thing is: it was all a coping mechanism.  I desperately tried to fill up that hole left by the part of me that stayed behind in Seattle, and yeah, it killed a lot of time, but I think it did help combat the sickness for a while.

 

Now that this trip is coming to an end however, I feel my homesickness subsiding.  I still look forward to the day we return, but I am also scared.  I think back on the past year and am always left smiling to myself: happy, but with a hint of despondence.  I am glad that I had all of those amazing experiences, but I guess that I was wrong all along: that I don’t want it to end after all.

 

As if I didn’t already have enough to make me realize this truth, I recently read an article titled: “The Hardest Part Of Traveling No One Talks About.”  As I read the last paragraph, I finally knew that, somewhere in the wild plains of the Serengeti, or perhaps in the peaceful rice patties of Ubud, I too had contracted what is known as the travel bug:

 

“This is why once you’ve traveled for the first time all you want to do is leave again. They call it the travel bug, but really it’s the effort to return to a place where you are surrounded by people who speak the same language as you. Not English or Spanish or Mandarin or Portuguese, but that language where others know what it’s like to leave, change, grow, experience, learn, then go home again and feel more lost in your hometown then you did in the most foreign place you visited.”

 

The truth to this paragraph is almost ironic. My parents have a current list of countries going in Notes with a heading that says, “Trip Around the World 2025,” and I am already thinking heavily about college gap years. I guess the reason why I am struck with both despondence and comfort when reminiscing about the past year, is because I have once again contracted homesickness. A piece of me may be anxiously awaiting my return to Seattle, but I know reclaiming this piece will not make me whole again. For another piece of me is waiting out there… an airplane ticket away.