Returning Home

January 2025: the transition to everyday life after 2.5 months walking the length of New Zealand
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Marvelling at the wonder that is your very own flushing toilet
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Hot Showers
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Clean drinking water from a tap
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Sitting on Chairs
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Realising that you own an overwhelming number of clothes
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Remembering how to drive your car
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Fresh Vegetables Every Day
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The first time you sit in front of a computer and it feels weird and you can’t quite control the mouse
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Being inside all day is really strange
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Desperately trying to remember how to do your job before those around you start to question your abilities
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Eating all the snacks in the break room tin and only noticing when your colleagues start to look at you with concern
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Grief that it is over and that all that planning, dreaming and doing is now a part of your past
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Joy that all that planning, dreaming and doing has been transformed into the most vividly amazing memories
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Figuring out how to fit all those vividly amazing memories into an acceptably short answer to “did you have a good trip?”
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Realising that half the people you interact with barely noticed you’d been gone, and that their worlds are still the same
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Slotting back into this you-shaped hole and wondering if it still fits, or should it change?




Planning the next one?