It is over.

Unless talking about a turbulent flight, a horrible job or a bikini waxing (…which I’m sure all of us are more than glad to put behind us…) “it is over” is usually a sentence that makes me sad.

It is the romance I had to end, because it was going nowhere.

It is my favourite tv-show that has reached its final episode.

It is my journey that will come to an end. Tomorrow.

And I have a weird feeling about this tomorrow. Tomorrow means change. Tomorrow means packing my bags and going back to where I left off from. Tomorrow is a scary thought. And a part of me wishes I could stay right where I am, sitting on the bus from here to there. Forever inbetween, forever indecisive, forever irresponsible. Like a naughty child eating crisps and cookies, drinking coke, listening to Tracy Chapman, watching strange lands driving by while the real world remains on standbye.

“Don’t cry because it’s over - smile because it happened.”

That is the conventional advice. Your journey is at an end. You have to go home. Get a grip. And then get over it… But what if I don’t want to? What if I don’t want it to be over? What if I want to keep going? Keep moving? Keep exploring?
Well… I can’t.

Simple as that. I have a flight booked, a shrinking bank account, a life back home… home! I have one of those, too! I have a rent-controlled apartment, friends, family, responsibilities, health insurance, , bills to pay and deadlines to make… Yep. The fun and freedom of life on the road are both passé as soon as I get off that plane. It is over. That’s what I used to think. However, I do not believe it’s true. Not any more. I believe it is possible to keep going, keep moving, keep exploring while living my life back home. It is possible to take the journey home. It has to be. I have to find a way to take this life I’m leading as a traveller, put it in a bag and bring it home with me.

Because what I found on the road is simply too beautiful and too important to me to give up now. What I found is a way of life that agrees with me. And I don’t mean a lazy life on the beach, drinking cocktails, hanging in hammocks and sleeping all day (…although I do like sleeping. A lot.)

No, I mean a simple life filled with simple joys. I remember the best days I spend in the last eight months were the ones filled with hours of honest work outside, with long walks and simple foods, good people and good music, a lot of time to watch the world in front of me and put it into words.
That’s what I will miss the most: Time.

Being away from home for so long, I understand that the only wealth I can ever have is not money, it is time. Time is this incredible thing someone gave to me and it is completely up to me what I do with it and how and where I spend it

On the way. That is where I wish to be. And I have to remind myself that I am, always. Even when I’m not moving, even when I’m physically not travelling anymore, I am always on a journey.

The joys I found abroad are nothing special. It was not the adventure I enjoyed the most, not the strangeness of a place (or myself for that matter), not the discovery of the unknown. Surely, that is all part of a journey. But I’m beginning to understand that those were not the reasons why I undertook it.

Nope. I simply wanted to know how it would feel like to be free. How a life would look like that I could design for myself. And I know probably nobody else will ever understand why I am crazy about eating Nutella straight out of the glass or sleeping until noon although a beautiful day is waiting, sitting in front of a computer screen and forming this one sentence to perfection, playing “Old Pine” by Ben Howard for the MILLIONTH time, lying under a tree for hours and listening to my thoughts, wearing silly glasses although I have perfect eye-side, staying in instead if partying the whole night through. Nobody will ever get any of that. But that’s okay. Nobody has to. Nobody else has to understand why I do the things I do. But it was important that I did.

And now it is time to go back to where I took off from. For now. And it will be great. In fact, I am positive that it will be the best trip of my life - just closer to my own bed, my family and my friends - my home. And whenever I want to feel strange again, that’s when I will disappear into the crowd again, to explore old and new shores.
It isn’t over. It has just begun.