Wrapping Up

Bonn, Germany

One year, three months and two weeks. Roughly. It seemed endless when I set off. But now, in retrospect, it feels more like a two week holiday. The day of my departure is still so vivid in my mind that it seems like yesterday. How could that have been more than a year ago. And while time seen moment by moment seemed long then it still rushed by, days becoming weeks becoming months becoming a year. And now I'm back wondering where it all went.
I've been home now for a few days. I'm amazed how quickly things have gone back to normal. The sun is lower here than in Southeast Asia. It's almost winter, so days are shorter - the sun goes down at five already. It's cold outside amd will get even colder, so that I have to wear a jacket and soon a sweater, too. Two out of three meals are cold and I miss hot congee or noodles or roti in the morning. I don't need to speak foreign languages anymore to make myself understood. And I know all the streets without a map. Of course, this is normal. Still, I had expected there would be a certain alien feel to it because of being away for so long but there isn't. A day after arriving I had already got back into a routine again. I don't have to think about what to do or where to go. I have to go to a shop and my feet carry me there without deliberation. I need to find something in the house and I just know where it is as I go to get it.
Already it's my trip that begins to feel unreal, like a dream that I've just woken up from. Scores of email addresses, thousands of photos and this diary the only reminder that it was real. And yet it's hard to imagine that at this time last week I was in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, half a globe away, preparing to cross the border to Singapore. Then I had to worry about transportation, changing money, booking accommodation. Now, my concerns are much more mundane, like what I'll do on the weekend or what's on TV or for dinner tonight. I've already placed (and received!) my first order with amazon - a new computer game.
I guess, there are two sides to this normality. There's a lurking sluggishness that makes you go on the way things are, not wanting to change anything or do anything different, essentially wasting your life. On the other hand, there are the things I mentioned last time: comfort and protection that let you relax and let down your guard, that make you feel at home. It'll be up to me to benefit from the refreshing comfort of my home but not give in to its inherent lure.
The world. It's so big. Enormous. Vast. And the more you see of it the more you realise that there is so much more still to see. One place leads to another, which leads to yet another and so on. It's maddening. A life-time is not (never) enough. With all these wonders, natural or man-made, ancient or modern, how can you choose? The opposite force of the above normality is greed. You want to see it all. I've met people who had traveled for years. Always on a shoe-string, hanging out at individual hostels for weeks planning their next trip or wondering what to do, waiting for some financial boost that would keep them going a while longer. Of course, it's difficult to see the world without money. And that's what you do need a home for. But there's a deeper lesson I learned: How can you appreciate the great wide world if you can't even appreciate you own home? People go on holiday and don't even realise what's just outside their own door. I used to be the same. But now, it's one I'm back here. I wouldn't want to go on traveling forever, even though I do sometimes envy those that do. I want to have a home, a job and a life, and I believe that even from a backpacking globe trotter point of view there's nothing wrong with that. As long as routine and sluggishness don't get the better of you, that is. This is where I make the money, gather the strength and lay out the plan. So, I'll go find a job, maybe a new place to stay, a life, and I'll dream of the days when I was free. And I'll prepare. So that the next time the world calls to me I'll be ready.