Why is coming home from a trip so hard to do?
It's true you did have cold feet about leaving - that's long forgotten.
It's true you did have cold feet about leaving - that's long forgotten.
And new aquisitions to put away, which in my case will fill about 2 sandwich bags. 
Piles of bills and paperwork anxiously await you. 
Then there's the Jet lag. You go to sleep at 8 PM and want to eat breakfast at 2:30 AM 
And of course something always breaks in transit or as soon as you get home, like your brand new and much prized Paris cafe table. 
You run out and buy a new piggie bank and start saving for the next trip.
Maybe the hardest thing is the loss of that sense of urgency. The thing that gets you out of bed in morning and rushing out the door to see what new adventures await you.Any good tips on making re-entry easier will be most appreciated.
Bonjour!
The only thing that helps is planning your next adventure!
ReplyDelete-Karen @ brodiemojo@yahoo.com
New York is starting to look awfully nice with the spring blossoms. Maybe enjoying the spring would help.
ReplyDeleteBless your heart, you sound so blue~
ReplyDeletebut don't worry, it is just the pendulum
swinging....all that excitement and now
the quiet. You are simply exhausted.
Give yourself a SPA day, hot soaks and
bubble baths and little treats that make
you feel better all day long.
Count your blessings. You'll be back in
Paris in October.
xoxo,Barbara
I'm well acquainted with that feeling of let down. The only thing that has ever helped me is just not leaving! Next best is Karen's advice - start planning NOW.
ReplyDeleteI love the pix- so illustrative! See if you can find a little bit of Paris in New York. I absolutley adore English gardens and find many to visit on former Estates turned into historic landmarks. It is a great escape for an afternoon.
ReplyDeleteBring back things to remind you of your trip that you can use on a daily basis, so you will have that pleasant feeling of remembering your trip.
ReplyDeleteSome things I have brought home from Paris – the little tubes of sugar – we can only get the packets – Café de Flore teapot, cup and saucer, small creamery pitcher, and Mariage Frères tea. Then, there are the Côte-d'Or chocolate bars and Maille mustard.
For me, though, what makes coming home easier is planning to get together with the kids and grandkids to tell them about our trip and give them their souvenirs.
Paris Bleus??
ReplyDeleteIt is hardest thing to overcome for me.....
Here are my tips....
Fix yourself a very hot cup of Mirage Tea
(put it in a special cup).
While your sipping it, listen to you favorite French cd.
Go outside on your patio or deck, look up to the grey blue sky....you are there! it is the same sky over Paris....
It is all one... you are where ever you want to be. This is when you are forced to mind travel. It is medication for our reality routines....
Take good care,
Bienvenue a New York
ReplyDeleteIt is never easy!
In reply to your request for help to be happy now that you've come back from Paris, the answer is to be here now and not in your thoughts of the past.
ReplyDelete'Happiness lies in the now'.
Even as you show us the beautiful images you captured in Paris, you can stay in the now.
As I look at the first image below the cup and saucer and the people in the chairs, I can see its beauty and yet be right here in the now.
'Happiness is here and now'.
Thank you for sharing all the beauty you see.
I know how you feel. I returned home on March 1st and I'm still feeling strange but I had been in Paris for over 6 months. Apparently, it's called reverse culture shock. You will feel a stranger in your own country for awhile. Just take it slowly. Knowing that you are dealing reverse culture shock helps. I have heard that the time period to get over it corresponds with the period of time that you have been away.
ReplyDelete....and yes, I'm already planning the next trip!
Thank you for sharing your trip to Paris.
ReplyDeleteIt will take me a little
time to adjust and I didn't even set foot out of Portland Oregon...
Bonjour indeed...
After spending the summer in Paris studying at the Sorbonne with my youngest daughter we found ourselves restless when we got back. We realized we needed to walk and talk together because no one else understood what we had done, nor did anyone else want to walk as fast or as far as we could walked.
ReplyDeleteTransition. Rarely comfortable, undeniably necessary. We are part one thing and yet becoming another. Review, dreams, anticipation..all while making groceries and filling that bank...it is a rich brew. Sign me up. :)
ReplyDeleteWelcome home. Jan
Well you could move there and never have to leave and go thru the leaving paris blues. :)
ReplyDeleteI have so enjoyed your entire trip. I understand the "let-down" feelings. The recommendation for "here and now" is a good one. In my head I'm always planning the next trip or adventure.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the wonderful pictures and stories. We want to go back soon.
Doris in LA
Put your feet up and stay put until you get bored then go out and catch up on all the stuff you miss.
ReplyDeleteI should be a therapist don't you think :)
I am American but grew up in Africa. The hardest time in my life was coming back to what was supposed to be "home" to me. Years later, I'm still happiest when I'm transient and visiting another culture. My advice: visit your friends right away upon returning, and keep planning more trips!
ReplyDeleteWhat gets me through my "I can't wait to get back to Paris" blues is reading books about Paris, watching Bourne Identity, playing the game "what would be the first thing I'd do on my first morning back in Paris," looking at other people's Paris photos on the internet, and looking though my personal Paris photo scrapbook aout once a week.
ReplyDeleteAs you can see, it takes a lot of work!
Your love of place really comes out in what you wrote, Carol. Sweet, nostalgic post. I hope you can glue your little cafe table together again--will you paint it?! Love the piggy bank! Pink, too! I say paint memories of it all, so you can reminisce, and we can all enjoy, as we always do. I feel like I went with you already!
ReplyDeleteWhat adorable little vignettes!
ReplyDeleteI think you nailed it when you said "the loss of urgency". That's it for me. I'm a night owl and a later riser in my every day life but on vacation, ANY vacation, I'm first one out of bed and out the door because there is so much to do, so much not to miss, so much to experience, and I don't want to waste of minute of the day. When I come home, fizzzzzzzle, I lose that momentum. I'm still trying to come up with a way to keep the energy going, but I'm afraid I haven't found the perfect solution yet.
People have given you lots of good suggestions that I won't repeat, instead I'll add one more that helped me. For awhile, treat your home base as a vacation location. Try to see it through the eyes of a tourist. Or pretend you have an invisible guest from another culture accompanying you through the day and imagine what would delight, awe, surprise or confuse them about the routines and places you take for granted. Fit some activities into your day that a visitor would do - visit a local museum, try a new restaurant, talk with strangers...
And of course, start planning the next trip.
I think the solution is to jump right back into the paints. I am amazed how your mini collection is growing!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all: THANK YOU for your helpfull suggestions!
ReplyDeleteI woke up this morning and realized that part of the problem is in all the pre-planning.
You spend weeks, well really months planning your next trip. YOu do tons of research.
Make lists of where you want to go and the hours and days etc.
But you do no planning for home coming.
At least I didn't give it a thought. So it becomes a bit of a shock and you're not at all prepared for it.
Maybe I need to go back to Paris RIGHT AWAY and Start planning my re-entry? ? ?
This is not from Dr. Phil, Carol, this is from your friend Dr. Bill.
ReplyDeleteAll the comments preceeding mine reflect a wonderful thing. Your "Paris Breakfast" friends are sincerely concerned about the well being of someone whose intellect, talents as an artist and writer, and wonderful sense of humor (as in today's blog) start their day.
Lucky you! Lucky us!
Planning your re-entry. LOL! I'm leaving for Paris in just a few days and so I thought, do I have a plan for my re-entry? Well, yes, I do. On my return I'll only have enough time to take a deep breath, repack, and then it's off for a week of camping in the redwoods with a hundred high school sophomores on the northern California coastline. THAT should keep me from having too much time on my hands, eh!? In fact, somehow I've managed to end up with some sort of majorish travel plan scheduled into every single month of this year - until December, but that's when everyone travels to see me for the holidays. It's a great way to avoid the post-trip blahs but the big drawback is I have no idea how I'm going to get anything done this year. Okay, probably not the type of problem I'm going to get any sympathy from anybody for.
ReplyDeleteI think that last paragraph sums it up. That's the part I hate the most.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I adore all those wonderful new acquisitions. I can hardly contain my excitement at the anticipation of seeing them all in future posts. Sqeeeeeeee!!!
:o)
Last time I returned from Paris, I immediately plunged into a round of job interviews and found a great new job. That helped! But the time before that...
ReplyDeleteWelcome back! Every time I go home it is harder and harder to leave. Just noticed we have the same travel clock!
ReplyDeleteI just returned and found that the Spa day and tea or coffee in a nice local cafe make re-entry easier. During THIS trip I kept track of the things that I loved the most and looked at my home with new eyes. It's spring in the Phoenix desert also, and I took the camera and photographed all of the wonderful blossoms on the trees and cacti. I took the time to go to the gardens at local resorts to adore the flowers (like I did when I visited the hidden gardens in Paris). Sometimes we are so accustomed to our home area that we miss seeing all of the wonderful things that make it special. AND I set up the folder that will hold the ideas for my NEXT trip to Paris.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is such a nice way to start my day. I love Paris! Your talent brings a smile to my face!!! Thanks for sharing Paris with us. As for coming back to reality well it's the very reason to plan another trip ASAP��
ReplyDelete