Someone once told me so, at least.

I am taking a break from the road. I am back at my old job, fixing bikes in the heart of Stockholm. I am good at it. It is steady: every day, ten to six. I signed a contract for five weeks. I am exactly half way through.

Coming back is hard. Coming back is easy. My two bosses greet me. Everything is just as I left it almost nine months ago. On my first day, they leave early and let me close the shop. Just like before. The customers are the same, the bikes are the same, and it takes me the same ten minutes to fix a puncture. It’s easy.

Meanwhile, my insides feel like an echong void and my skin is crawling with a restlessness I can’t really pinpoint. The hours of sameness go by too slow. The routine, which was supposed to be a vacation and relief after the past months of travel, challenge and confusion, drives me out of my mind. The contrast is too big. Even though working for a month was part of my plan, it’s too sudden.

I’m afraid that I am disassociating or becoming depressed. My mind goes on a rampage to hunt down any trace of any problem, going in circles.

“It’s OK to be bored,” a friend tells me.
This is when I get it. For the past nine months, I have felt a lot of things. Boredom has not been one of them. Tired, grumpy, scared – sure. I have been in a constant state of growth; piece of cake. Now, I am trying to fit my new shapes into the mold I left behind. And some parts of me slip in, effortlessely, as if they never left. Whereas other parts – me carrying water in Maputo, me sitting high in a truck in Poland, me sleeping in the bushes in Portugal – are throwing a tantrum. These parts of me have never seen these places. How could they possibly fit in?

Is there a name for this? This process of re-assimilation to your own life?

After these five weeks I will go out in the world again. I don’t know where, how or with whom; to up the difficulity I have forbidden myself to make any plans. It will not be boring at all.

Until then, I do enjoy having access to a kitchen and bed, September-sun, biking daily, going dancing and yes, the well needed rest. Even this is growth.

…

(This story told in pictures.)