read part 1: Travel Writing - Bangkok
read: Travel Writing, part 2 - Cambodia
read: Travel Writing, part 3 - Vietnam
read: Travel Writing, part 4 - more Vietnam

Travel Writing, part 5 - Asia Aftermath
I've been home from Asia for almost a week. It's been a rough week.

I took 7 rolls of pictures, and after getting all of my pictures developed, I realized I didn't take enough pictures of the things I really wanted to remember. People, places, countryside, life. I got all the touristy stuff. But that was only part of the trip. I guess I'll have to go back and take more pics someday.

As is typical with me anytime I travel out of the country for a good length of time, I have a really hard time readjusting back to life at home. I think the biggest problem is that I just don't want to be home. I like the travel too much.

This past week has been hard getting my internal clock back on track. I've woken up every night except last night, in the middle of the night, completely unsure of where I am. And not for just a minute or so. I've had to sit up in bed and wake myself up completely, to reassure myself that I'm in my bed, in my home, back to reality. It's been a little freaky. I've also had trouble sleeping alone. I've slept with Friends A and C for two weeks. While it's been nice to be alone again, it's also been difficult.

I tend to keep to myself, for the most part. I value my alone time. I actually have difficulty mingling and being with people, if it involves something other than being entertaining for a group. But, when I travel with friends, I get used to having them around. I like it. And suddenly when they are gone again and I have to get back to my reality, I'm usually lost for awhile. We eat together, sleep in the same room, spend almost 24 hours a day for many days together. When I'm suddenly left to fend for myself for meals and a schedule, it's hard for me to readjust. Turns out I like people after all.

But I think the hardest part of returning from a trip is getting my head back to my world, my life, my routine, my reality. I usually come back and appreciate what I have more than before I left. But I also come back not wanting it. As "Rainman" as I am when I get bogged down in my life, I much prefer the non-routine of travel. And I usually dread getting back into my routine once I am home again.

It's not that I hate my life, or even dislike it. But when I travel, I come home wondering if I'm really happy here. Why is this my life? I'm way too busy, I'm usually stressed, I have to adhere to a schedule, I mix in a few fun things, and I never have enough time to just appreciate life. Is this the way it's supposed to be?

I usually suffer for awhile with my head and heart still wherever I just returned home from. And this recent trip to Asia is no different. I've been reading about it since I've been home. And truthfully, I've been pretty obsessed with the poverty of it. Not that I was shocked by any of it. I expected it. Not that it was a major theme of the trip, being emersed in poor conditions. We were quite comfortable and removed from the scene of poverty for most of the trip. Yet, I can't stop thinking about it.

I want to go back and spend time not as a tourist, but getting to know the poverty. The histroy. The countries. The situations. Why is it that depending on where you live in the world, you are dealt either the hand of affluence, or the hand of destitution. I have stuff because I live here. Yet, had I lived in Cambodia still being born the same year I was born here, I would have been smack in the middle of poverty, persecution, and tyranny brought on by the Khmer Rouge. My life would be very different, if I even survived to have a life, due only to geography.

I come home and I question my world. I question what I do. I question who I am. Sure, I have a nice job, a nice house, a nice car, a nice world. Did I do anything in particular to deserve it? No. Does it have meaning? Not sure. Good question.

It's not even that I get fired up to save the world. I just don't understand the world. And I think that's all I really want out of life. To understand the things I don't understand. Why can't it all make sense?

Last night I watched Beyond Borders. Partly to appease my Angelina obsession (which pales in comparison to Friend A's Angelina obsession), but partly because it's a story that visits several areas of the world in poverty and tells a story of people trying to do something about it. I have as much of an obsession with that as I do with Angelina. I just never know how to put it into practice. Nor, how to find and hang out with Angelina without that whole stalker thing....

Being home this week, I really have questioned if this is my home. I stay here, I've purchased property, I've laid down roots as though this is where I belong. But is it? Maybe it's just the last place I ended up, and I haven't found the reason to leave, yet. So I stay. And I go to work. And I have something called a life, because that's what we do.

I seem to feel better in general when I'm far away, experiencing new things, out of my element. Even as much as the sights and sounds of traveling and seeing what there is to see, I almost prefer the reality. The parts of my trip that stand out the most is the poverty. Even more so than Angkor. I work so hard in my life to make my element comfortable, to build a world around me that is safe and familiar. Yet, when I leave it, I feel free. Is this where I'm supposed to be? Is there something else I should be doing?

We have too much stuff. I see these people living in dilapidated houses, maybe one room. I'm sitting here typing this in my "office", which is one of three bedrooms of my house that I live in alone. I'm not angry that I have this. I don't feel bad about it. I work hard for it. But why do I have it? Why can't we all have it? Surely I can be of better use than I am on any given day. Going to work at my job that is ok, but not anything I love. Coming home and worrying about this job, my life, my friends, who I am, where I fit in, what I do, what really matters, and what is the meaning of these things I do that compile my life. Why is that a life worth keeping?

We make our worlds so complicated. Yet, I just left a world that is far less complicated. Sure, it's poor in many places. Sure, it's difficult. I'm not saying it's better. But, it's simple. I make my world too complicated. It doesn't have to be this way.

Needless to say, my heart isn't in my world right now. I think it hasn't been for awhile. And when I travel I am shown even more that it's not. I think the term is "going through the motions." But, do I have the courage to make a change? Leave what is comfortable for longer than just two weeks? Can I go to where there isn't comfort?

If I love to travel so much, if I love to be away so much, is this really where I belong?

Don't get me wrong, it's great to come home and be back in the familiar. I appreciate everything I have. I've missed people in my life and that I love, and it's great to be around them again. But when the homecoming wears off, I will find myself sucked into the headaches I had before I left two weeks ago. Why do we create worlds with so many headaches?

I love what I have and who I'm with. This world is good. But for someone who has made every effort to be settled, who longs for consistency and stability, even when I make that for myself, I don't feel stable or settled. I'm restless. And uncertain. I've created rock-solid structure, painstakingly so. Yet, I think it only makes me feel trapped. It feels so good to get on a plane and leave it.

Maybe I just haven't seen enough of the world, yet. I intend to see it all. Maybe once I've seen everything I think I need to see, this world will finally feel stable to me. I'll feel home.

Wanderlust? Maybe. That would be the simple answer. But I don't think that's the motivation for what I feel.

One thing I do like about my job is that I work with several nonprofits that are involved in saving the world in many of these places in turmoil that we hear about from the comfort of our homes. Sudan, for one. My job gives me worldwide exposure to places that I hope to travel to someday. Not because they are glamorous, or touristy, but because they are in need. Why is that intriguing to me?

At my job I read about the world everyday, persecution, opression, people dying. I see horrible photographs of things we don't get to see on the news, because it's not appropriate. It's censored. I read about places that are not safe. Yet, it feeds my desire to be in those places. I'm constantly looking at a map, trying to put a geographic reference to a country I am researching for a project. I don't know if that's a good thing, having access to so much information. It's like dangling a carrot in front of me everyday. Places I work with and can read about, but can't go to because I have a job. The reality of my job, even though I may read about Sudan all day, is that I'm just the girl stuck in the office job. When I'd rather be in the field making the research, rather than stuck in the air-conditioned cube reading about it.

It's not even that I think I can make a difference. I just want to know why, and maybe tell people who can make a difference. I want to see it for myself.

Explain this to me.

It helps to write about it. I love to write, and these past two days of writing about my trip have been tremendous therapy for me. If I could get paid for this, I would be in heaven.

You are a trooper if you've read all of the Travel Writing blogs and ramblings. I give you props.

Til my next adventure...

C.T.

P.S. Thanks to Blogger for inventing Blogger Images while I was away. You made these posts MUCH easier to add photos and make them super cool.