A return to home life with a couple adjustments

After six incredible months of travel, it’s time for another (big) change. To change to return to a ‘normal’ daily life at home.

Which immediately raises the question of what a normal daily life entails. As compared to six months ago, quite a lot has changed.

Lasting change?

I now know that I can do so much more. Physically as well as mentally. I’ve now experienced that I can walk for over an hour, drive a car for four hours, can go to a cinema or spend an entire day being surrounded by people, just to name a few.

But that was while I was travelling. How will this be affected by being home? After all, I still don’t know why I could do so much more. Was it because I could do whatever I wanted to do? Was it because I didn’t have to work and as a result was spared a lot of mental effort? Or did my brain make new connections?

Right now I have no idea, though I expect that time will tell. Naturally I really hope that at least part of this improvement will turn out to be a lasting improvement.

What I do know

This experience has given me a renewed sense of hope and faith. Hope that things do get better. That, with a lot of small steps and a lot of patience, real change is possible. Once more, I dare to believe in my body and abilities. Rather than thinking that I can’t do something, I’m now more inclined to at least give it a try.

As a result, I have a much more positive outlook on life. Instead of an endless circle of working, resting and sleeping, the future feels full of potential. Suddenly I can’t wait to try out new things.

This made me realize how much I needed this. My life before this trip consisted of working, resting and sleeping. This made it much more difficult to remain positive and to look towards the future with a sense of confidence. For me, really leaving and leaving everything behind, was the way to find myself again. To explore the things that I can or can’t do, to like myself (and especially life itself), once more.

And thankfully this happened. Now I know that I’m enormously privileged for being able to do this. I feel incredible grateful and want to do my utmost to build on this experience. To not revert back to old habits and rhythms. No, I choose to change.

New habits

One of the differences between travelling and life at home, is that I was much more active while travelling. And we all know how healthy exercise is, both for our physical as mental health. That is why I want to try to walk at least 5 km every single day.

Another thing that was different travelling, was seeing or experiencing new things every day. This one might be a bit more difficult when you remain in the same location, but I figured that being creative might have a similar effect. Before I didn’t really do anything creative, but this is something that I can change as well.

Since I have no idea what I like to do or where my talents lie, I’m going to try different creative things in the coming weeks. I’ve already begun with making a dress, learning the guitar and building a standing desk. I also bought spray paint, modelling clay, colour pencils and yarn. Hoping that with that much choice, there should at least be one thing that brings my creative mind a sense of joy.

Now that I’m writing it all down I do see a catch; wanting to do a hundred things at the same time and never finishing a single one. So I’m hereby giving myself the rule that I can only work on one project a day.

I don’t know what the immediate future will bring or what I will learn about myself. But at least I can try to make it an adventure!