Round trip

Half of every journey is the journey home.

I read that, or something like that, recently. Sounded cheesy. Sounded bumperstickery. Sounded cliché Hero’s Journeyish.

Also, duh. Isn’t it obvious? You go, then you return. One half of the trip is getting there; the other half of the trip is coming home.

And yet, despite the cheesiness, despite the obvious obviousness of the statement, it resonated. And here’s why.

I am a homebody with a well-stamped passport. I love exploring and discovering. At home, I dream of meeting up with my new friends in Seville, or biking in Croatia, or hiking in Iceland. I get antsy. I dream. I plan. I go. And there I am, out there, seeing and doing all those new things I wanted to see and do, and I am overcome with longing for home. I yearn for the easy familiarity, the sweet comforts, the awakening to what I know.

I have been angry with myself for this, for wanting something, getting it, then, while experiencing what I wanted, yearning for what I had before I got what I wanted. Yea, yea, I know: Be here now. But if I look through the half of every journey is the journey home lens, it allows me to not only embrace the contradiction but also to revel in it.

It also allows me to appreciate that the literal journey home--the geographic trek—is not just the return to my quiet bedroom and my plot of land and my children. It is also a metaphoric journey, one of reflection, of integrating experiences, of learning the lessons of the road.

A final word: The word “journey” is overused. And I am guilty, having used it six times—seven if you count that last sentence--in this small essay. It gets most tiresome when it is used metaphorically (guilty…although I DID call myself out on this as I wrote it!) or overly poetically (not guilty).

That said: I hope your journey as a reader of this essay has been a pleasant one.

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