I was thinking of sharing something here that I wrote to my sister when I got back from nearly a year backpacking in east africa. It was about how I felt like I was "now living the straight line that comes after the bell curve, life pegged at zero." Actually re-reading a lot of what I wrote, I can see I was way more depressed than I even remembered being. And that I was frustrated with people who were telling me to "find new dreams, you're so young, so much ahead of you still!" etc. as I was still so attached to my old dreams, which were now behind me.
Anyway, just now as I was reading through that email, my Pandora Imagine Dragons radio station started playing Awolnation's Sail. Whoa - weird. I'd never heard that song before, never heard the band before people were posting about Leanne & Josh going to see that concert in India.
But yes, the transition back to life in the US is surprisingly depressing. In their blog, they wrote that even before they did the 2 year travel tour they'd traveled outside their state at least once every month. I'm like that as well. I live with a tent and sleeping bag in the trunk of my car. Some people just have that itch - being "away" regularly is necessary as breathing.
The planning of their trip must have been nearly as exciting as being there (since in the planning stage you have stars in your eyes as you imagine the highlight reel where all you feel is happy awe, and you're not thinking of the stomach thing that will keep you in the squat toilet for hours, bedbugs, getting sick of your own smell, getting targeted for a sales pitch with each step you take, or other inevitable realities). The selling of their stuff, the hunt for a renter for their place, I think each thing they got rid of that took them closer to their trip must have been a new high.
A few times in their blog, someone - I don't know which of them, since they didn't say - would mention "Someone's clock is ticking!" with a picture of one or the other of them with a baby. I don't know whose clock was ticking, but I also read something Josh said about how their next adventure was coming back to Colorado and starting a family.
Reading back through the email I wrote my sister when I got back from my trip, I was nothing but frustrated and depressed when someone would tell me to focus on "my next dream" as if I could shuck the last year of my life like yesterday's socks and "just look forward". When you spend so much time focusing on a dream, the dream doesn't just go away when you've accomplished it. Your mind and heart haven't stopped their intimate attachment to it. It feels like they never will - and maybe they won't.
I just wonder if the new dream didn't feel like the absolute opposite of the one she was still invested in.
I know we'll never know, but still I think about it so much.