01-01-01
I've been home for 3 weeks now and I'm still not settled. Partly because the rest of the trip continued on without me. I don't miss it, for me the trip ended when my friends and I left Singapore. But because we paid for a full year and didn't get it, I have been "gone" in spirit.
My house was rented out and we haven't been able to get back into it yet. Tomorrow is the day we take possession, I can hardly wait. I want to sit in my easy chair and click the buttons on the remote. I want to take a bath in my own tub and later curl up with my own pillow.
I want to re-establish my territory.
Life is not the same as it was for me. I can't move as quickly as I did before. I have to stop and think how to dial the cell phone. I couldn't remember any of my codes for work. I couldn't even remember how to dial the MLS computer, a task I used to do without thinking.
I have been immersing myself in things I should know. So many things have changed, I drive down the street and whole shopping centers have been built since I left. Prices are absurd! I can't get a bowl of rice for less than $6! Good grief in China two of us ate for 50 cents!
At the grocery store I have flashbacks. I stood in front of the olive shelf remember the time in Italy when the vendor offered us the most incredible olives in the world. We bought several varieties and the bunch of us walked around the ruins sharing them. It was a wonderful flash back until some one brought me back to realty and asked me to move!
I have a hard time at the grocery, there is so much stuff and all the animals are dead!
One night a lady was complaining to the vegetable manager that she didn't need so much parsley. She said she only uses a couple tablespoons on a recipe and couldn't he sell her a smaller amount. His response was, "geeze lady it's so cheap now!" She said, "no, it's not, it's 98 cents!" He said, "that's only a buck! What's a buck!"
I though to myself, "1.2 billion people live on less than a buck a day. That's a lot of money!"
My sleep habits are awful. I wake in the middle of the night ready to start the day. The first week I was back, I had to show houses. At 2 in the afternoon I would get so tired, it was all I could do to keep awake. My clients were wonderful and understanding. They knew it was my nap time.
Pills have helped. I kept taking P.M's until I would sleep all night. Now I'm back on schedule, no, I'm not hooked!
A good side effect is how I can exercise on the stair stepper or the tread mill. I am strong and time goes by fast. I want to maintain this level of fitness, I'm not skinny, but I am fit.
When I watch the Weather Channel on CNN, I've been to most of the cities.
I look at the globe with a new perspective. I can never walk past a map without looking at where I've been.
When people ask me where I've been, I try not to say a whole lot. Telling folks what I did last year seems to glaze their eyes over. They just don't "get it". And that's omitting the part about riding a bike!
Sometimes I feel like an alien in my own skin.
Larry and I drove to San Francisco from Denver. Yes, that's 2613 miles round trip to get the boxes from the container. We filled the back of my 4-runner with boxes of other riders from Colorado. It was a crazy thing to do, but we did it and it's now done.
The strangest thing though, we didn't even stop to do anything in San Francisco, a town which I have always thought of as my most favorite city. I didn't care.
We drove thru Nevada and never dropped a coin in a slot but I marveled at the beauty of the land. "America the Beautiful" is not just a song.
We did stand in the warehouse parking lot in San Francisco and talked to Dr. Helen and Sarah for a couple hours. It was good to connect with other riders. We all miss each other.
It's going to take time.
But we will get over it.
It's been an awesome year.
It's not the end, but the beginning, of the rest of my life.
The second half.
Stay tuned for Part II, here I come world!
to be continued...
