Life was a kind of dreamy perfection. One month of travel filled with daily discoveries and new places to traverse. I was elated and inspired constantly, jotting down ideas at random throughout the day. But when we boarded our first flight in the journey home, tears trickled down my face as I left behind some of my dearest family and the familiarity of a routine filled with lots of coffee, fresh scenes, long conversations and the time to be present, always. Our journey home lasted a little over 40 hours. We departed Amsterdam and stopped in Zurich, Singapore and Sydney. Our flights are now a blur of the over availability of movies and limited or uncomfortable sleep.
I felt myself coming undone as I experienced my worst jet lag. The day after we got home, after a long sleep we piled our camping stuff into the car and headed on our annual church youth group camp at the beach. We expected we'd be a bit tired, but everyone ends up tired on camp, so it was the perfect place to blend in and re-adjust to our timezone. What I didn't anticipate was for the jet lag to wear me down to the core, a tiredness so deep that I felt sad and not myself. Thankfully I have a friend with patience enough to sit beside me in the car as we drove along the coast line, stopping regularly to take photos, to climb a hill to a lighthouse and clamber over rocks to reach the ocean. There on the soil and sand of my own country, I restored my hope and joy to take new adventures close to home.
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