The difficulties of returning home after 3 years of travelling

Leaving. Coming back. Leaving. Coming back.

I have been dancing to this tune for almost 10 years now. So I should be used to it, shouldn’t I? But as easy as it is to get used to leaving, I don’t think you ever really get used to coming back. Maybe it’s me overthinking. Or maybe we don’t talk enough about returning home, the adjustment, the shock it can cause. And even if we do talk about it, it is still a bit complicated sometimes.

Why can it be so hard to go back home?

Everything is the same, everything is different.

Going home means returning to familiar places and people. It means seeing your old wardrobe again. It’s remembering where the cutlery is at your dad’s house. Going home means seeing that your best friend still hasn’t changed her perfume. It’s finding a made-up bed, with your favourite book nearby.

But coming home also means seeing that the entrance hall is no longer grey but blue. It’s seeing that your two best friends are no longer talking to each other. It means realising that some of your loved ones are no longer with you. It’s welcoming new people into your life who are already firmly established in the lives of those closest to you.

Coming home means seeing that everything is the same and seeing that everything is different. It’s like entering another dimension, a dimension that’s very similar to the one you remember, but that doesn’t work quite the same way.

3 years of life for me… and for them too.

Leaving for 3 years means living for 3 years. Strange, isn’t it? To have the impression of having lived a thousand adventures, of having lived a parallel life that doesn’t quite fit in with your own.

And then we come back, and it’s as if we’re back in the past, that nothing has changed. Yet the lives of those close to us have also moved on. We don’t really follow conversations, we don’t know everyone, we don’t know the smallest details of the lives of the people who are so important to us. Everything seems abstract and distant.

You want to tell it all, share it all, bring it all to life. But that’s not possible. Our stories also seem abstract to those close to us. How do you explain what it’s like to drive on Takaka Hill without having experienced it? How do you explain that Sam & Pam were the dream team at work?

So you have to accept. Accepting that you don’t understand everything, accepting that you can’t say everything. And above all, accepting this new crossroads where our own lives meet those of our loved ones once again.

Norms are no longer normal.

Receiving a dozen kisses when you’ve become a hugger in New Zealand. Living in the city after having lived so close to nature. Finding yourself back in a rather materialistic culture when all your possessions fit into a backsack and most of them come from second-hand shops.

Yes, it’s difficult. It’s hard to reconcile these 2 very different lives. It’s hard to be aware of attitudes that seem a million miles away from our new way of seeing things. What do you do when so many things no longer seem normal? It’s as if I’d forgotten the rules of the game and was thrown back into the arena of the experts.

It’s weird, too, because isn’t that what travelling is all about? Learning a new “game”? Or maybe because meeting a new culture is one of the aims of travelling, the differences intrigue us more than they confuse us. Whereas back home, you should know the game, you should understand it. And above all, it shouldn’t confuse us so much.

Facing another version of yourself.

When you travel, you learn a lot about yourself. Our outlook is less judgmental, more caring. Our minds are more open. We notice certain norms that have dictated our lives, we question them, and we break away from them.

To travel is to grow.

But coming back can also teach us important lessons about ourselves. Coming back is a bit like stepping back in time. And when I came back, I had this strange feeling of coming face to face with another version of myself, a version of myself that is so far away but that is also somewhere deep inside me.

It’s disturbing. You live with yourself. You learn about yourself. You have the impression that you are deconstructing yourself, that you are more aware of yourself. And then, from one day to the next, you come back and are thrown back in front of this old version. You realise the extent of the change, just like that, all at once.

A gentle readjustment.

I don’t know why this return home is the way it is.

• Is it because of the period of my life when I left?
• Is it because of the length of time?
• Is it my slightly anxious side?
• Is it the context and experiences?
• Is it simply that urge to escape that never leaves me?

When I came back from a year in the USA when I was 17, it felt like that trip had become my identity. This time round, I feel more like I’ve integrated a multitude of reflections and deconstructions, and therefore have multiple ‘selves’. This trip was a bigger challenge, a beautiful inner journey that really turned my life upside down.

Many people think it’s easy to go back home. After all, this is where you grew up, surrounded by the people who love you. My family and friends support me in every travel project and our relationships are only strengthened as a result. But there are still a lot of questions.

• What do you do when so many places are now your home?
• How do you combine all your lives? All its facets?
• How can I be me? The me of the city, the me of nature? The me from here and there?
  The sedentary? The traveller?

I think the answer is time.

I need time to see my loved ones again. To see them one by one so that we can get together and share beautiful things. But also so that I don’t feel overwhelmed by all these emotions and changes.
I need time to accept that I’ll always be at odds with certain standards, but that it’s OK, that we’re different and that we can live together in love despite everything.

I need time to relearn how to live my life in Belgium.

And I need time to integrate all these adventures, all these encounters, all these emotions, all these memories.

I need time to combine all these lives.



And then I’ll be fine. I’ll take up this crazy dance again.

I’ll leave again. And I’ll be back. Again and again.