I'm not sure I'm going to say anything unique here, but I think maybe it's a different wrinkle on a classic We have all taken trips in our lives. Whether they are short or long or local or far-away they have an effect on us and we return at least slightly changed or feeling differently about things. Whether it was a hike to the coast or in the woods, a week long trip to the desert or a months-long journey to another country, these experiences powerfully impact us, and most importantly change us.
It's common for people people returning from a journey to get asked if everything seems different when they come back to home, wherever that is. It's also common to get asked "so, how was it?" but that is another infuriating rant on its own, I will attempt to stay focused. The thing is, the reasoning is flawed, it's not that the shock is that everything seems different. It is precisely the opposite. Everything is brutally, painfully similar. I remember after coming back from 3.5 months in SE Asia I arrived home, greeted my parents, drove home and watched them go about their same routine, put my stuff back in my same room, went over to my friends house and was kicking it just like old times. People wanted to know "so, how was it?" but no one seemed to understand my shock that life was going on despite the fact that I'd been seeing elephants and monkeys and transvestite hoookers for months on end. That is the hardest reality about traveling anywhere, it is an inherently selfish act where it becomes hard to believe the whole world hasn't been on a similar journey. Our shock is not at how different everything seems but at how similar and unaffected everything is.
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