I arrived back from France yesterday, and I am having real trouble today shifting back into normal reality. The real problem was that I was way too far gone, to far detached from my normal reality, but OH was it wonderful.
I have experienced unpleasant side effects upon return from a trip. Jet lag, sometimes. Sadness about leaving a great place…yes. Stress about the to do list that is waiting for me when I get home…always. Never anything like this.
I feel like I am just walking through the motions of my life today. I feel in some ways like my real life was the one that I left yesterday when I left Paris; my life of travel.
I say too far gone because when I was in France, I was as far from “here” in mind and spirit as I could have possibly been.
I love everything about France. I love the food. I love how quiet everyone is and the lack of obnoxious loud voices. I love the lovely lilt of the beautiful French language. I could go on and on. I felt relaxed in way that one only feels relaxed when they feel truly at home.
Everything was perfect. Even when we were lost and confused and wandering, it was still perfect. I got to spend a week and a half in heaven at the price of returning to the real world now which seems flat and two dimensional.
Now that I have returned from such a state of unadulterated perfection and utter relaxation, it seems like all of the things that irritate me about my real life are amplified. My shell feels thin, like any one of these little, seemingly insignificant irritations might be enough to shatter me at any moment.
It is getting a little easier. The memories of perfection are slowly becoming a little fuzzier, less clear than they were even yesterday. The numbness required to function in daily life is slowly returning.
It saddens me more than I can write that these feelings of happiness that were so clear in my mind are fading, but it might be for the best. It is not really practical for a human to live in that kind of heightened state of joy and enlightenment all the time.
What is happening to me? I feel like a puzzle piece that just doesn’t fit anymore. Is this how some of my travel blogging companions come to be permanent wanderers? Is that the path that I am heading down? Is there really such a thing as travel addiction?
For now, all I can do about it is to try to capture the essence of the joy and the memories; the wine and the sunshine, the heart capturing french villages and captivating views, the food and the fireworks and the good companionship.
I will tuck them away in a safe place in my heart, protected from the relentless onslaught of the tedium of daily life for a day when such happiness seems like an old, faded photo, and I will carefully take them out and unwrap them like a precious gift and smile.
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Has anyone else experienced this before? Will I get over it? How did you cope with it?
