It happens every time now, when I return from traveling. The moment I step out of the uber and onto the street below my apartment, I feel like I never left. Like I’m resuming a game that I paused so I could use the bathroom quickly. And it’s not just like I’m picking up where I left off, but it’s like I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have been away. To have been someplace different. Seeing different sights, hearing different sounds, thinking different thoughts. It feels like it was a dream.

I have to close my eyes tight and really pull in order to get back to the other place, and even then I can’t return myself there, to my body in that place. I’m still here, trying to watch a movie about there through squinted eyes.

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What’s scarier is that I might forget the types of thoughts that came while being in the other place, because those thoughts feel precious in a way I’m not able to describe. Thoughts questioning old patterns and routines, free thoughts, thoughts of “well what do I do now?” trying to fill in the newly empty space in my day, thoughts of art and effort and mastery. Thoughts coloured by very different background stresses, and nourished by a few too many buttery pastries, maybe.

In general I try not to dwell too much in the past (this aided by having a memory that is like the wind). But I find myself hoping that my experiences have made their mark on me, even if subconsciously, imperceptibly, even if I’ve all but forgotten the specifics of when and where. Maybe me feeling this way is in and of itself proof of an effect.

Where does this coming from, I wonder? It’s not that I think things were better while I was away, just different. But different in this strange alter ego yin and yang kind of way. Almost like I had forgotten about some parts of myself, and I didn’t realize that I had forgotten until I saw them again. Kinda, idk.