Coda

(I wrote this a few months ago and never got around to posting it because it felt too sentimental. Rereading it today it didn't sound so bad. Here is a last post for Videza. For now.)

So this blog needs a coda. We made it back in one piece, twelve hours on a plane not withstanding.

This is hard to write because I do not have anything revelatory to offer. I don’t actually travel with the purpose of reworking my perspective on life, or finding deeper truths.

I travel because I love it. Because waking up somewhere new, learning a new set of streets, new words for “entrance” and “exit” are exciting. Travel makes time for other things, for thinking and brainstorming without the intrusion of routine, for breathing space.

It’s almost three weeks since I got back to Ohio. Life is different and the same. The strangest part is realizing that most people, everyone except Chelsea, can’t really understand the anomaly of the last three months. It was three months for most people – they worked, they read, they studied and lived.

And for me, looking at the pictures, at this blog. Remembering everything that happened and was said off the camera, it feels intangible. It would not take much to convince me that I never left. That it was a dream.

Which is why it is best to travel with someone you trust, because they will remind you that you were awake. Of the moments when you put your foot in your mouth and the pictures you deleted. And of the occasional dumb wonder that struck at unexpected times, when we realized that first a week, and then a month and then three had passed.

Well, I know you all believed in us, and knew we’d make it safely home. But now we are, and the fact is perhaps better comfort than your confidence. Thanks for reading and traveling with us.

Cheers.