Returning Home after an Eight Month Trip

Kelly and Quang just got back from an eight-month trip around the world. In their blog, Global Roam, they talk now about what it's like to return home...

"This is how it feels: We'd rather keep our revelations and our stories to ourselves. In this way, they retain an air of preciousness. We don't want to squander them on those who do not want to hear. And yet. If someone would just ask, ask us something other than was it fun, we would spill a wealth of experiences we are so eager to share.

I grabbed my fortune back and tucked it in my purse, letting Quang handle the questions: Got back almost a month ago. Yes, lots of fun. Where to next? Nowhere. Have to make some money.

Had we really been home almost one month? Yikes. Yes. Where has the time gone? These past three and a half weeks at home have inched by while the days have slipped into nights and back into days again. We are restless. We walk our dog and wait for something to happen. After six months of near constant movement, we have been reduced to a DVD-induced stupor. We are waiting for our lives to start.

Quang called in to work, to the job that had been offered him upon his return. No go. Things had shifted while we were away. That job was no longer a reality. I accepted work, summer quarter English classes; however, summer quarter doesn't start until July.

I stumbled upon an ad in a local paper for temporary, part-time gardeners. Perfect, I thought, and dailed up the listed number. I spend three days a week planting impatients in fancy flower gardens outside even fancier homes. But all the while I am impatient. I am impatiently waiting for something, something exciting, something consuming, something I can not picture and can not name, something bigger than me."