Re-entry

It’s been a month since I returned to Nantucket to resume being a husband and a father and dog owner and (per usual) I am happy to be here, but I have to be honest.

Cooking, even simple things, is something I missed.
Okay, maybe I did miss Hazey
I’ve been out there a dozen times since getting back.
On my first day back, I fixed a shower, a toilet, glued the kitchen gate and reset the wifi.

I wish I was still out there on my trip.

I’m not depressed about it. I’m just missing it. Solo travel defined who I was for five full months not to mention the year leading up to the trip. It’s very hard to adjust to life on Nantucket. (Where I play the role of the local inhabitant and the tourists are so freaking annoying. That’s a joke. But not really.)

It’s very expensive to live on Nantucket and I have blown through all of my remaining travel money for the most part. Going to my friend’s funeral and staying in a hotel was about the same cost as two months in Vietnam. The same is true of a recent trip off island to attend my daughter’s graduation. I’m glad I went, don’t get me wrong. It’s just shocking.

In SriLanka a trip to the grocery store cost me $11. Here on Nantucket I just paid $122 for a single bag of (really amazing) groceries. Also, I filled up my truck’s gas tank with Nantucket gas last week. Our regular gasoline is very close to $6 a gallon as of this writing. That’s island life for you.

My phone continues to give me alerts that I set up months ago about some of the activities and places I should be at right now. My calendar reminds me I should be in Indonesia. And I am so obsessed with the trip that I’m writing a book about solo travel and what it has meant to me.

Maybe the book will sell well and I will be able to use the money to get back out there. I’m going to try to work my butt off and live frugally to put away some money. And my hope is that by the midterm elections I will know if travel is a good idea or not.

In the meantime, to adjust to being back I’m enjoying some of the things I really missed while traveling. Dates with my wife. Fixing stuff around the house. Cooking in my kitchen and grilling on the back patio. Spending time at the beach with my dog. Playing music on the streets of Nantucket. Visiting with friends.

I’m trying not to get too comfortable. It’s a real danger.