Days go by, you’re now a full-blown traveler, your clothes (or rags by now) and bicycle have plenty of character. If your tent could talk it’d have so much to tell. If you’re a guy you’re probably sporting a beard that would scare bin Laden himself and if you’re a girl, you couldn’t care anymore now about doing your business in the bush. Because squatting is so much better than toilets anyway, right? None of you two care anymore because you are incredibly fulfilled with your current endeavor.

Then, it is over.

Money in the bank has actually drained, who would have said that would happen? You thought this would go on forever. But no, it is time to go back. Maybe you’re just tired of this after so long. Months or years have passed and you feel like moving on to something else. Thousands of hours riding lonely roads have given you plenty of time for thoughts. There are all sorts of projects that you think of starting. Perhaps, you just started missing your little routine and nostalgia for your previous life has grown on you.

Anyway, it is over, you’re flying (or cycling) back.

Hurray, you’re back in town again. Surrounded by members of your family and friends that are happy to see you! For some, there aren’t really that many people, but find it extremely enjoyable to walk the streets in your town and let lifelong memories come back to you. Things are not different, but they sure do look different. Conversations are the same, but they now sound slightly odd. Everyone’s demeanors look also a little funny. And money is likely a common subject that you find overwhelming. Everyone is talking about it, constantly. Slowly though, you get into the rhythm of things. After a while, you find work that suits you, probably different than your last job. Routine is setting in, and, honestly, you like the comforts of it. No more looking for a place to sleep, or food, or a shower, or dealing with ever-new people, or weather, or the hardships of pushing your damn heavy world-tourer bicycle across the world’s roads.

It’s pretty nice, you missed many things about this life and had forgotten about others. You are, somehow, a new person, and look at things with a twist.

Life goes on, the time has passed, it’s now a year already! Not much has changed, if anything at all, since you settled in. You’re in the same house, probably with the same work, and doing the same things that you did when you started your little routine. Ha, what is it? There’s something odd. You know it’s there, but you can’t pinpoint what it really is. You sense it, but you can’t touch it. You’re aware now that there’s a different way of living than this one as if you came back from a parallel reality. Time and days are passing by, with little differences or excitement in between. Maybe some nights you struggle to fall asleep, the day went by but you didn’t really live it. And doing so you expanded, or quite literally, exploded your old bubble, and widely stretched it to accommodate the whole world. It’s different peoples, foods, climates, costumes, rituals, and thrills. You’re pretty lonely in this borderline between your current world and the adventurous world you got to experience. There isn’t much room for adventure in your current world, he? You fill your weekends and days off with your own kind of tiny adventures to make you live again the moments you cherish from your travel life. After researching a bit you even heard of the micro-adventure concept! But it’s Monday again and you just finished breakfast and are about to go back to work, at the exact same time as the previous week, and the one previous to that. You’ll go the same way, enter the same door, and do, more or less, the same thing you did. Weekends are passing by, always trying to fill them up with new things, because you’re looking for that feeling again.

Remember sweating in the dark of the night and sleeping in a tent was even more of a challenge than riding during the day?

Stability is good, and money allows you to go on with your life. You have at least one day off every week to look for that thing. What is it? Have you found it yet? You look like a drug addict trying to find that same feeling again, but like him, you fail to do so. You need more, much more. Maybe you go for holidays, take a week off, hang a couple of panniers on your bike and set off. And back, back you are. it’s Monday again. It was great, but different, wasn’t it? You desperately want more of that thing. You don’t know what it is, but you need more of it. Some will tell you that you look bored, apathetic even.

But it’s been a year! Surely I have completely adapted to normal life again, right? Right?
Wait, maybe, after all, I haven’t. Who am I now? Am I different than other folks? Did I have my brain rewired in such a way that I don’t look at things the same way anymore? Some look more beautiful, others are less important than I thought they were. But what do I know? Time doesn’t care about your feelings.