‘So how is it being back?’ I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked. But that’s not a dig. I like being asked. It shows people are interested, people care. Each time I’m asked it feels like a window is opened in my mind, it gives me permission to look through and remember, allowing the thoughts to light me up inside and to be reflected in the smile on my face. Because the truth is, it’s so easy to forget.

Our first couple of weeks back were filled with a very welcomed whirlwind of reunions with friends we had dearly missed. Reunions where there was no need to fill every silence with entertaining stories from the road. We could just be ourselves, catch up about general life, laugh lots and slot back in, as though we’d never been away. It was a reminder of the unmistakable, heart-warming, life affirming nature of true friendships. Neighbours welcomed us back with home-baked goodies, arms full of produce from the garden and kind words. We had missed them all. And when the countryside on our doorstep is as beautiful as it is, it was really no hardship to have our local rolling hills as the object of our photo reels. But slowly, as the days passed, the excitement settled, and normality crept in.

Tackling the mountain of boxes in the attic was initially pretty overwhelming. I found it so stressful to have so much stuff. Why do we own more than two pans, when we had survived for two years cooking in only one!? Why did I ever think I needed this many hats, when I only have one head to put them on!? Why were throw cushions a thing I needed in my life, when they literally just get taken off the bed at night and put back on again in the morning!? There was just box, after box, after box. Just things. Lots of things. So little of it was really necessary for life. We had survived two years in some of the harshest of environments with so little that all this extra ‘stuff’ felt pretty burdensome. But as I slowly unpacked, muscle memory reminding me where each item used to live, holding each item in my hands brought with it memories of when we bought it together, or where I last wore it, or who gave it to us or the family members we inherited it from. Unpacking boxes gradually turned from stress-inducing to joy-inducing as little by little the house turned back into our home. That’s not to say we didn’t use the unpacking experience as a chance to have a clear out, we definitely did, but in all the hard and uncomfortable moments on the road, home was what I craved – The safety net of a place to call our own, that we made to fit our needs, that has quirks only we love – And a house is only four walls until it reflects the life held within it. I found great comfort and gentleness in all of that, as though putting our home back together piece-by-piece was soothing my soul, de-stressing my nervous system with simple familiarity and taking great pleasure in the true luxury of everything that was beyond the necessities of life. To be back in a position where our human needs of food, water, shelter and sleep are guaranteed everyday without much thought has brought a great sense of peace that I didn’t realise I was lacking, as though that primal part of my brain had been running on overdrive everyday for two years without me even knowing it.

The first day back at work quickly arrived. I stood on the train station platform, the cool autumn air of the valley was misty and damp. I pulled my wooly hat down over my ears to keep off the chill despite my summer jacket, exposed ankles and cloggs giving it away – I had not yet left one season, but was trying to embrace the next. It all felt very strange to be back on that same old station platform, retracing the well-known commute, repeated countless times over the years. Overhearing the kids from the village as they chatted away on their first day back at school – all nerves and excitement and awkwardness in their new, ill-fitting uniforms – I realised how much they were all outwardly expressing how I felt inside. As the gentle lulling-rocking of the train passed through the misty, sheep filled fields, then the colourful woodlands, and plunged into the darkness of the tunnel, I was transported from the countryside into the city. And as the train gradually slowed through the gritty old industrial streets and finally came to a stop in Sheffield station, I inhaled deeply, I knew what was next. I stepped onto the platform and picked up the pace. Keeping time with the rhythm of the daily commute. No stopping. No slowing. Always keeping left. Eyes forward. Everyone moving in their own dance, but all as one. A human murmuration. The airy light of the Station hall drawing the flock onwards. Merging from left and then right. The energy growing. One more turn. A slow swoop down the final steps. And then, as soon as it started, its all over. The calm descends. Everyone disperses, as though heading off to their roosting site for a day of work. Whatever connection was there moments ago is lost, but there is consolation in knowing it will be repeated again tomorrow.

As I walked up the hill towards the office, passing the iconic street art ‘Now Then. Then Now’ I smiled with relief that it hadn’t been painted over, that it was still here, still just as cheery. It struck me how many times I must have walked passed it, and how on every occasion it has resonated with me, through all the different stages of life, all the different people I have been whilst walking passed it and all the changes in my life it has unknowingly been witness to. Two words, so simple, so real, so equivocal – but not mine. Instead they are a connection to this place, a connection to all the people here who share it, a connection to all the previous versions of me who’ve passed it, to the returning version of me and to the versions of me I’m yet to know or experience – all of me then, and all of me now. As I passed the new buildings, with lots of glass and smart walkways and fancy planting, nothing felt familiar anymore. I caught a glimpse of the rooftop light art ‘Everything is different today’ – It never felt more apt. But as I reached the office and my day unfolded, I realised that ‘same, same but different’ would be a more accurate summary of my return to work. I was back in the same team, but it had a different name, I was back in the same building, but working on a different floor, I was back in the same job, but the contracts were all different. Everything the same, and everything so different.

It was amazing how quickly everything felt normal, and yet, normal felt so strange. There is definitely a presumption that returning from a trip like ours can be difficult, that adjusting to ‘normal’ can be hard, but in truth, the thing we have found unsettling is how easily and comfortably we have adjusted. I have a hard time accepting the feeling that it was all just a dream, as though it never really happened, or was just a short two week break, or that it wasn’t really that difficult, or that we weren’t really adventurous, or that the challenge and strife was all in our minds – but most of the time, that’s what it feels like. It’s as though finding it more difficult to readjust to ‘real life’ would some how be the more acceptable position, as a way of proving that we had really done it.

At times it feels like we are the living, breathing personifications of the classic British ‘Keep calm and carry on’ approach to life. The world at home continued whilst we were away and we have slotted right back in, as though nothing has happened. Ted’s back to fixing the mini, and rehearsals with band, I’m back to yoga and my kitchen, time is spent riding fun, light, squishy mountain bikes with friends, and catching up on two-years worth of Sidetracked magazine or making my way through book recommendations kindly saved by friends for my return. Being away meant we got used to quickly adjusting to change. On the road, no one day was ever the same, we readjusted to different ways of living, to different cultures, different environments day-after-day, so its only natural that we are good at readjusting. But this change, to returning home, has been the easiest of them all. And that in itself is strangely hard to process. It feels like we are carrying around a secret, a skeleton unseen to the world around us. Fragments of it are shown in our extra grey hairs and the additional lines on our faces, but we have not returned as wise and profound worldly gurus, we never did find that light that enlightenment entices us with, and no, we still don’t really have an answer as to ‘why?’. But, when we take a moment to remind each other ‘we did it’, when we give ourselves the permission to drift off to where our memories want to take us, inwardly things feel different and I can’t stop the involuntary smile that appears on my face or the tears that brim in my eyes.

Because to return means that we have been away. We went somewhere. We did something. We chose our hard. We made an active decision to step out of the easy and comfortable. We experienced what is real. We felt the brutality and joy of what it is to live. We confronted the vulnerability of our place as part of this planet. We were overwhelmed by awe. We lived the freedom of time. We observed the small things. And were made small by the big things. We knew reverence as a physical sensation. We endured the pain of a struggling natural world. We were complicit in the ugliest version of humanity. We were embraced by the beauty of the human heart. And cocooned by the compassion of strangers. We moved with the consciousness of nature. We loved until it hurt. We fought until we were numb. But chose to never give up – on love, on the journey, on each other, on everything. We felt it all – so raw and so real. And to us, that’s what it means to live.

So, yeah, it feels good to be back. Because it feels like Hermann Hesse was right when he wrote about the path being a spiral. Maybe our journey to get back to where we started was never that at all. Maybe to return, and to believe we are back where we were, or to trivialise it into the cliché that it was all about the journey, would mean we somehow missed a step along our spiral, turning it back into a circle after all.

So despite now being at ease, I’m pretty sure we can never be ‘as you were’.