I’ve been back home for three days now since my one month adventure with my boyfriend and some friends. By the end of that one month, I felt that I was more than ready to return home the same ways as it was for my boyfriend. I felt a little physically exhausted and excited to start a new wave coming in for the next following months. The last couple of days of the traveling went by too quickly. Before I knew it, I was on the last plane ride out of five headed back home asking the flight attendant for a blanket because I forgot to take my jacket out of my check-in baggage but they didn’t accept Vietnamese currency nor MasterCard so I had to bear the cold as a random guy in front of me handed me a bag of chips saying, “I am sure you’re hungry too, here is some food.” I was too tired to process if it was an insult or a genuine concern on that 1 AM flight, but I took the chips and thanked him anyway.
As usual, I missed my dogs so bad so the first thing I did was to kiss them. I was extremely excited to put down my 10-kilogram backpack and climb to my loft bed which is not as comfortable as the beds I used to sleep on during the trip. One month is not that long, but still it felt a little weird to wake up the next morning in a bed I am more familiar with. Wasn’t I supposed to be waking up on a thick foamed mattress in a cold room reaching for the A/C remote to put the temperature on high, curling up in a ball pushing myself to my boyfriend’s still in slumber body? I definitely had a case of where-the-hell-am-I syndrome the first morning back home. But it felt wonderful at the same time.
Walking outside the house felt pretty weird, too. Silly thoughts came to my mind. Did my neighbors notice that I was away? Did they notice that I am four shades darker? It felt great not to have to carry around my backpacks with me all the time when going out.
But if I were to choose, I would rather be woken up by phone at 8 in the morning to hop on a boat to snorkel around four different islands, or ride a tuk-tuk under the raging fireball of hell a.k.a. the sun in the middle of a humid day to see different Buddhist temples and ruins or the maybe stay up until midnight to explore around an unfamiliar city to try different drinks and street food rather than being in the comfort of my own home, depending on the situation, that is.
I really hate post-travel depression. It makes me feel zoned out reminiscing things that happened on the recent trips. When the first hugs are hugged out, the stories collected were told, and the reunions over, it makes me feel like coming back home isn’t really coming home at all. My true home is being surrounded by the unknown. I feel mixed emotions right now, but then again, I love the fact that I am moving on. This means getting closer to the next plans.
