My challenge

Being awake at night from the christmas eve celebrations and the assorted meal and wines leads to thinking.

It's been six months since my return and I'm still trying to cope with coming back. The realization is slowly seeping in that I am perhaps seriously altered from the experience. At first, nothing much seemed to have changed from who I was before. I did behave a bit differently, but then I had just come back from a year off, so nothing quite out of the ordinary there. Upon completing the much wanted journey, I ended up not wanting much. It was as if wanting itself had ceased, although I didn't realize this right away. I was just content, happy with how it had turned out. I didn't really do an evaluation, partly because it's simply rather impossible to attribute any one conclusion to the assessment of such a vast body of experience.

But of course, I did make an appraisal of what went on. It was one of deep satisfaction. Not just about something defined or even any one thing in particular, but about everything. About life. About my existence. It went deep.

Six months hence, and I see that this led me to some complacency but also a temporary suspension of dissatisfaction. I was no longer looking for more, like I've been doing for the last 12 years or so. It must have been strange to see someone who was always looking to do the other thing, the thing not many people sought after. Even though I have always been convinced it isn't such an odd thing to do, and still am, it is an unusual course to lead. I now see that the path traveled came from wanting, and a profound dissatisfaction with my existence. I wanted to travel the journey less taken, and see where that got me.

The astonishing thing is, it got me where I wanted to go. It got me there in such an unexpected way, I never realized I went there until long - well, six months- after I got back. When I came back early July 2011, coming back seemed a relatively normal thing to do. I was glad to be back. I was very happy when I was underway, returning was just part of that. It wasn't like I was emigrating, the return was always part of the journey. Coming full circle allowed me to do just that, to end what I'd begun about ten years ago.

So this is where I stand now, and that satisfaction hasn't really gone. Only now I'm getting perhaps less reward from it. I'm starting to want to go back to that first feeling of deep satisfaction and seeing it isn't a permanent state. I know I can revisit this state of mind if I stay open to it. Not allowing the mind to seal away that experience, keeping it alive, will preserve what I've gained by having gone away and returned. This will be my challenge. There will be no room for complacency.