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Remember the butterflies you had when you were leaving home to set out on your amazing travel adventure? Okay, butterflies is a bit of an understatement. Sheer terror might be a more accurate description. Fear of the unknown, of homesickness, of getting lost, of being alone and lonely, will no doubt be mixed with the excitement you feel when setting off on an adventure. Well, believe it or not, those feelings of fear and anxiety can crop up again when your trip is over and it’s time to go home again. With a little work you can control these feelings and make your homecoming a happy one.
Saying Goodbye
Without a doubt, the hardest part of going home is saying goodbye to the friends you have made while on your travels. It was difficult to do when you left home, but you had the assurance that those friends would be waiting for you when you returned. The same is not true for your friends abroad. While you hope that your paths will cross again, there is no guarantee that this is not your last goodbye. While it will never be easy, you can ease the pain by keeping a positive attitude. Change happens and there is no use letting yourself be devastated by it. Focus on the good times you had with these people, the lessons you learned from them and the adventures you shared. Have a fun farewell party, where you can reminisce and swap emails, so you can keep in touch. And then actually do it! It will seem much less like an ending if you can honestly look forward to news from them in the future.
Triumphant Return
The first few days after I return from a trip are always pretty amazing. It’s the best feeling in the world to be greeted with a big hug and a “You’re back! I missed you so much!” wherever you go. But once everyone is used to you being home and goes back to their normal lives, it can feel pretty lonely. It’s easy to get depressed and miss the friends you’ve left behind, and the challenge and adventure of travel.
Depending on how long you’ve been gone, it can feel like life at home has learned to get along fine without you. It’s a challenge to fit yourself back into that world again, but it’s important that you make an effort to feel normal again. Arrange a night out and get back in touch with your friends at home. Get a job, even a temporary one, so you don’t have time to sit around the house and mope. Go and visit your favourite spots in your city to remind you of why you love it, so you’ll have some good answers if you find yourself asking, “Why did I come home again?”
Rekindling Old Friendships
There is nothing sadder than going out with a bunch of friends after you return from a trip and finding that though they are interested in hearing of your adventures, they’ve, oddly enough, been having some of their own. And they didn’t include you. Missing out on a year’s worth of inside jokes and collective stories can make you feel completely alienated. Even worse is when you go for a coffee with a good friend and find it awkward and, for the first time in your lives, you can’t find things to say to each other.
The solution is simply to just hang in there. Stop talking about yourself for a while, which we all tend to do when we have a year’s worth of travel stories we are eager to tell, and enjoy hearing what’s been happening in their lives. Talk about old times to get the ball rolling and you’ll soon find the awkwardness disappears. While things change in a year, your true friends will still be there when you get home and will be just as eager as you are to get to know each other again.
Reverse Culture Shock
While getting used to living in a new culture is an exciting challenge, getting used to living in yours again can be much less satisfying. You’ll inevitably find yourself missing the quirks of living away from home, the food you got used to eating, the anonymity of being somewhere where you don’t speak the language. I’ve often felt like someone in a movie who has just discovered they have the power to read minds when suddenly I land at home and can understand everything that’s being said around me. It can be a total overload, not to mention extremely annoying.
Reverse culture shock is a real shock simply because you didn’t expect it. You would think that going home would feel like going home, not like going into the unknown. Anticipating this is half the battle in conquering it. Expecting the transition to be easy and to have everything be exactly how you remember it will only make it worse. Be patient with yourself and with everyone around you, and you’ll soon find that you’re happy to be home after all.
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