A step closer to reality

What happens when it eventually resumes?

The steam alerted me to the boiled water ready to be poured. I put my book down and walked over to the jet boil, the handy contraption we use to boil our water on the road. I turn the handle on the gas valve, remembering the useful righty-tighty, lefty-loosey analogy, and remove the lid from the pot. I pour the hot water onto the already placed tea bag in the mug and walk over the sand, noticing the coolness of it against my bare feet. The sky is just starting to brighten, the first rays of sun slicing through the air. The dunes stand as perfectly formed as ever. I find a flat spot on the low wall. I take a sip of my tea. I look ahead and I think of everything that has happened and of everything that is to come.

It's sixteen months since we said goodbye to our home, our jobs, our world as we knew it. Sixteen months since we packed up the campervan with our remaining possessions with a plan ahead of us of to travel Europe. It’s six months since we returned and sold the van and bought the overlander. It’s nearly five months since we set off to Europe again on an overlanding adventure. Months and months of travel, of visiting amazing places, of experiencing life, of dealing with unforeseen challenges and feelings and unmet expectations, of facing surprising turns of events. Moments of change and uncertainty. Moments of joy and disbelief and sheer gratitude for the life we have created. And now we are on the brink of another change. A skip and a hop back to a world we used to know.

So much time has been spent travelling. So much time has been spent with the freedom and the uncertainty that comes with it. So much time has been spent learning about myself. Can I keep the lessons going? Can I stay true to this new version of myself when I’m thrown back into the routine I left behind? It may only be a short period of time that has passed but in my head it feels s o  m u c h  l o n g e r. Can I hold true all the things I want to remain and continue to let go of all the things I’ve removed my grip from? Can I stop myself from falling into familiar patterns of behaviour and thought? There are so many questions and so many unknowns. There are so many thoughts in my over-thinking over-reactive brain. I need to remember the quiet I’ve become so accustomed to. I need to fall back into the peace I’ve created for myself and carry myself within it as I enter this next phase of life.

There is so much more excitement to be had, so much joy to come, so much more life to be lived. Perhaps it’s just the beginning. Perhaps it hasn’t even started yet. It’s almost as if we have come full circle. But the circle is in fact more of a spiral, or a series of loops, the end of the circle never quite joining as things change and feelings alter and life goes in different directions.

A circle that never completes.

But I don’t want the circle to ever complete because that would mean I’m done and I don’t want to be done. I want the loops to continue, nearly joining but never touching. Maybe one day my circle will close. Maybe one day I will have set out everything I want to do and more. Maybe I will be forever chasing that completed circle.

The circles never close - the loops only continue

The truth is, reality is real and it’s scary. It takes me back to a place I wanted to escape from. The escape gave me breathing space, it gave me s o m u c h t i m e. But that time is going to be taken away by the duties of a 40-hour work week and the living that has to be squeezed around it. Along side the fitting in of the running and the writing and the reading; all of the things which I have become so accustomed to doing in the plentiful amount of time I have had.

Perhaps the word “reality” isn’t particularly helpful, it bringing with it those negative connotations. What could we call it instead? The next phase, the next chapter, the next opportunity for a moment to be made…? There are parts of reality I’ve missed: the comfort in knowing I’ve a set place to stay every night, the ability to establish an exercise route, being surrounded by familiar things, creature comforts and home rituals. It’s time for a break from the travel. The time is right, we both know it.

This next instalment doesn’t need to be a repeat of what came before it. It can be the same but different. So much will be the same but so much will be different. I’m the same but I’m different, with new experiences tucked under my belt, a fresh outlook stored in my vision, a sense of freedom I never want to relinquish. We have bigger plans, our eyes widened to the life we could lead, the life we want to lead. A new reality awaits.