HOW SOMEONE ELSE EXACTLY DESCRIBED WHAT I'VE EXPERIENCED

Jun 19, 2016
4 min read

I've been in South-Africa for almost five months to do my internship. I've immersed myself in another country, with no-one but strangers, with nothing but challenge. I knew beforehand I was going to come back as a different person. With a stronger opinion and a different view.

When I was back home in The Netherlands, I had an (unexpected) hard time getting used to everything that once was so familiar. And than familiar is actually an understatement. It was everything I ever knew. The change of perception caused moments of unease and negative dips. I tried not to pay any attention to it: after all, there was nothing I could do about it, besides talk. But then there wasn't really anyone I could talk to, because I was the one that changed, and that was hard for others to understand. And so I left it as it was.

Until today, when I read a blogpost from a travel girl who exactly described, what I felt:

The hardest part of traveling no one talks about - Kellie Donnelly

You see the world, try new things, meet new people, fall in love, visit amazing places, learn about other cultures – then it’s all over. People always talk about leaving, but what about coming home?

We talk about the hard parts while we’re away – finding jobs, making real friends, staying safe, learning social norms, misreading people you think you can trust – but these are all parts you get through. All of these lows are erased by the complete highs you experience. The goodbyes are difficult but you know they are coming, especially when you take the final step of purchasing your plane ticket home. All of these sad goodbyes are bolstered by the reunion with your family and friends you have pictured in your head since leaving in the first place.

Then you return home, have your reunions, spend your first two weeks meeting with family and friends, catch up, tell stories, reminisce, etc. You’re Hollywood for the first few weeks back and it’s all new and exciting. And then it all just…goes away. Everyone gets used to you being home, you’re not the new shiny object anymore and the questions start coming: So do you have a job yet? What’s your plan? Are you dating anyone? How does your 401k look for retirement? (Ok, a little dramatic on my part.)

But the sad part is once you’ve done your obligatory visits for being away for a year; you’re sitting in your childhood bedroom and realize nothing has changed. You’re glad everyone is happy and healthy and yes, people have gotten new jobs, boyfriends, engagements, etc., but part of you is screaming don’t you understand how much I have changed? And I don’t mean hair, weight, dress or anything else that has to do with appearance. I mean what’s going on inside of your head. The way your dreams have changed, they way you perceive people differently, the habits you’re happy you lost, the new things that are important to you. You want everyone to recognize this and you want to share and discuss it, but there’s no way to describe the way your spirit evolves when you leave everything you know behind and force yourself to use your brain in a real capacity, not on a written test in school. You know you’re thinking differently because you experience it every second of every day inside your head, but how do you communicate that to others?

You feel angry. You feel lost. You have moments where you feel like it wasn’t worth it because nothing has changed but then you feel like it’s the only thing you’ve done that is important because it changed everything. What is the solution to this side of traveling? It’s like learning a foreign language that no one around you speaks so there is no way to communicate to them how you really feel.

This is why once you’ve traveled for the first time all you want to do is leave again. They call it the travel bug, but really it’s the effort to return to a place where you are surrounded by people who speak the same language as you. Not English or Spanish or Mandarin or Portuguese, but that language where others know what it’s like to leave, change, grow, experience, learn, then go home again and feel more lost in your hometown then you did in the most foreign place you visited.This is the hardest part about traveling, and it’s the very reason why we all run away again.

This blogpost describes a reverse culture shock, in short this basically means that in the period you have been away from home you have adapted the norms, patterns and culture of the host country, which causes that you don't feel in place at your own country anymore. It'll get better with time, as you re-adjust yourself to your environment and culture again, but it can take a painful and time-consuming amount of time. For those who can't handle this, or for those who have a wealthy wallet: maintain your style, keep on traveling and become a world citizen.