Yesterday, I found an American grocery store loaded with all of the things I’ve been craving since I left in January. Foods like muesli, maple syrup, pesto sauce, nutella cookies, salsa and tortilla chips. I dumped all this stuff and more into my basket with reckless abandon. The picture of a kid in a candy store. 

Then, while waiting for my bus, a sweet young girl handed me half of her orange, and her mom gave me a lemon candy. A wordless exchange, but meaningful, one that will stick out in my mind for a while.

And that evening, I sat in bed watching a thunderstorm break open the sky while I sipped on tea and wrote. 

Small moments that feel grounding when everything else feels overwhelming. 

I’m homesick. Mostly, I miss familiarity, a sense of community, not feeling like an outsider. I miss my people and my dog (so, so much). This is the longest I’ve ever been away from home, and I’m starting to feel it. Traveling is exciting – the constant newness and wonder of being in a new place with new culture and ways of doing things, but that same newness and wonder can quickly get tiring. 

What a blessing, though, to be tired from doing something I love.

It’s dizzying to think that five days ago, I was in Kathmandu, and now I’m in a whole other country. 

That’s probably part of why I’m feeling so homesick: I was finally starting to feel somewhat settled in Nepal, and now I’m in a new place, with a new everything to navigate. And for someone who processes slowly and is deeply affected by stimuli, the change is a lot. Exciting. But a lot.

Hanoi is chaotic and fun and interesting. Starkly different from Nepal. Like going from two different worlds or centuries. 

English seems to be hit-or-miss here, but everyone uses Google Translate. The bus system is easy to use, clean and widely accessible, different from the buses in Nepal that were crammed full of people, chickens, goats and giant baskets of grass. The infrastructure is cleaner, the roads and sidewalks are paved and relatively un-ankle busting. The city is more spread out, so there’s room to move, at least until you get to the Old Quarter, the main tourist hub. And the staring that was so pronounced in Nepal? Doesn’t exist here! I don’t feel like an alien walking down the street; I’m just another foreigner that they barely take notice of. Thank goodness. 

The hospitality is warm; people are helpful and seem curious. The other day, a local woman saw me trying (and failing) to cross the street; she marched up to me, took my arm, and guided me across the street with a big smile. I was laughing, and she was too. 

As I contemplate coming home for a break this summer – my brain and nervous system are exhausted – I find myself wondering what will happen if I do? If I’ll come home and stay; if my itchy feet will guide me someplace else; if I’ll find a job. To be honest, I pictured this year-or-whatever of travel looking quite different than how it’s turned out. 

That’s okay. I made a bold choice uprooting my life in the way that I did. And as I am stretched and bent into a new version of myself, the growing pains make themselves known in big and tender ways.

Maybe my time here is meant to be less about having fun and more about finding happiness where I can, in the small moments. Like in the fact my apartment is like a little oasis: quiet and cozy and clean. Or like when I clap on my noise-cancelling headphones and stare out the window of the bus and watch the world go by. Or the fact that I am navigating a public transit system in another country all by myself!

Do I love Hanoi? So far, not really. But that’s okay. I’m not going to love every place I travel to. There I things I like about it, and that’s enough.

Sometimes I wish these posts were, I don’t know, lighter? More about how much fun I’m having and all the things I’m doing. I wish I could be like the people who can bounce from country to country, unaffected by the turbulence that brings (at least for me!). I wish I wasn’t having what seems to be like an existential crisis every other day. Like, chill out, Jen, it’s just life! But the point of this blog was always supposed to be a personal diary first, a spot where I can spill my guts out with no judgement, so, here we are. 

Traveling challenges me on a daily – sometimes an hourly – basis. It allows me to experience a wide range of emotions.

I think that’s the point of all of this.

And I am so grateful for it. What a blessing my life is!