intermission

Let’s talk for a minute about post-travel depression. This isn’t anything clinical, this is just an issue I have after every really good trip. I have the time of my life, I get home with tons of pictures and stories, I force my family to sit through my slideshow (and wake them up when they’re missing the best parts), and then… and then I don’t even want to look at my pictures. I hate unpacking, and not just because it involves doing laundry, which is my least favorite chore. An empty suitcase might mean relief for some, but it feels like a wound to me – the kind you don’t want to look at because the acknowledgment will make it hurt all the worse. 

I love my home. It’s where all my favorite things are, it’s where my pets live, and it’s close to friends and family. But when the initial snuggling and visiting and leaving my toiletries out on the sink ceases to be a novelty again, it’s almost easier for me to not revisit the vividness of travel memories. 

So, yeah. I haven’t finished catching up on blogs from Italy, even though it has been – flips through the calendar to check – almost three months since I’ve been home. And yes, I fell off the wagon of posting every single day while I was in Italy, which, to be fair, I did warn you I would probably do. Travel is as exhausting as it is exhilarating, and as the days wore on, editing what I wrote (or even finishing it, in some cases) about each day fell lower and lower on the list of priorities. 

However, I’m still determined to finish. Eventually. Hopefully, before my next trip, which is hopefully sooner rather than later. Hopefully. No promises. But I want them completed, so that someday when my memories of the trip are worn enough around the edges that the details are fuzzy, I can read through them and restore a little of the brightness and shine. So let’s pick up where we left off, and if necessary, pick the thread back up again and again until it’s done. And if that fails, contact me any time for a free in-person 2-hour slideshow presentation.