Normality Will Hit Hard

Nobody Cares About Your Travels

Really, you’ll be surprised how few people show even the slightest bit of interest in the life-changing trip or stint abroad you’ve just returned from. If you’re the kind of person who loves to travel a lot, you might have trouble understanding this, because you’re probably the exception to the rule. I’m the exception who always asks to see everybody’s holiday photographs and get the rundown on the kinds of places they stayed in and any interesting people they met.

Basically, until someone asks, just keep your exciting experiences to yourself. You might be lucky enough to have a like-minded friend or two, or a mother like mine who would be interested in my experiences no matter what they were – take advantage of these people and share some of the interesting tales you have with them, but be careful not to overload them. You might need them to still be listening when you return from your next big overseas jaunt.

And a corollary to this: don’t take it personally when people you know and care for have no idea what you’ve been doing all this time. I’ve lost count of the number of people who introduced me to other friends as someone who’d just returned from teaching in Slovenia, or Czechoslovakia … hadn’t they read the dozens of emails I sent from Slovakia? The difference was absolutely clear to me, and I felt almost insulted on behalf of my Slovak friends, but I learned that I wasn’t going to be the one who would change the world. I did correct them, though – gently.

Normality Will Hit Hard

Once you’ve drunk your favorite coffee again or visited the best CD shop in your neighborhood, the routine normality of home could hit you hard. While you were living or traveling abroad, even mundane everyday tasks might have seemed a bit more exotic or interesting, but at home, going to the supermarket is not a place where you’ll find a dozen new foods. And if home is a place you lived most of your life, you probably won’t find any incredible historic attractions that you don’t know about, either.

Every time I’ve returned from long periods abroad in countries where I didn’t speak the language well, one thing that really hit me is how tedious it is to hear everyday conversations in a language you understand well. Hearing people discuss how long it takes to get to the next bus stop or complaining about their partner not putting the toilet seat down sounds a whole lot more interesting in a foreign language.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 711