It’s mid-morning on Saturday and I’m not sure how to put a finger on my current emotional state. Sitting at our dining room table this morning—sipping my delicious French vanilla creamer-sweetened coffee, which feels like a treat after many months of using plain oat milk—I admitted to John that I felt sad.
When one of the kids started crying yesterday and said, “I thought I’d only feel excited to be back, but I miss Europe,” I told them this was a perfectly normal response, and that it was all going to be okay.
I’m trying to give myself the same little pep talk.
For nearly four months there was a unique sense of adventure every single time we woke up and now… there will be decidedly less adventure and more day-to-day reality.
We’re back to set routines with external expectations. Our church picnic is tomorrow (I need to make a picnic lunch; there will be so many people!), the kids have camp and babysitting gigs, we have appointments with mechanics and doctors, our whole pantry needs to be restocked, and there is a lot of time to fill as a parent (John heads back to Europe in a little over a week on a work trip).
It feels tremendously odd to plunk right back into “everyday” life at home.
On our drive back from the airport, I told Joy my current state draws some parallels to people who train hard for an epic sporting event. For so long, all your efforts are directed at one thing. It’s naturally all-consuming. But then, suddenly, it’s over. That’s where I am right now.
It’s going to take a while to get into a fresh equilibrium.
Also. I’m tired! The night before we left Cardiff, I got TWO hours of sleep. Then we travelled home and I got about FIVE hours of sleep the next night.
So, after I write this post, I’m taking a nap. I think catching up on sleep is probably the best antidote to my feelings. Though I also ate some Honey BBQ SunChips earlier today and that helped, too.
Every single time I write a stream-of-consciousness post, I end up feeling better, so I figured I might as well try that approach again.
So far today I’ve:
- finished emptying out my toiletry bag from the trip
- vacuumed
- had my favourite peanut butter (Kraft brand FOREVER) and banana on my favourite toast (Country Harvest Oat and Honey)
- emptied various garbage cans
- watched Indy catwalk his bike
- mixed up a borax + icing sugar solution to try to get the resident ant population in our house under control
- started reading Theo of Golden (SO GOOD SO FAR)
- sent John to take Indy and a friend to their tennis camp + get groceries
- checked the mail and dealt with various items
- picked Indy up from tennis
Belle will need to get picked up mid-evening from her leadership camp. On his way home from dropping her off last night, John picked up takeout sushi from our favourite place and it was every bit as delicious as we remembered it to be.
I’m currently looking out the window as two teenage boys detail my vehicle. We left in the middle of the Canadian winter and the mats (thankfully rubber, covering the carpet) are caked in salt stains. They’ll move on to our second vehicle eventually. I’m happy to help some high schoolers pad their bank accounts.
The snow tires are off both vehicles. The safety inspection—due for the car—is also complete.
Souvenir gifts have mostly been handed out to the respective people.
I’ve done two loads of laundry.
The thought of cooking anything sounds horrific. Why do we need to eat three times a day? John has volunteered to BBQ for supper, bless his soul.
I’m slowly moving things back into place. Before we left, we tried to clear items out of the way to give the family moving in lots of space. I emptied most of my drawers, my entire side of the closet, the vanity in the bathrooms. This offered a blank slate, but I need to slowly move things back into place, which feels… a bit daunting.
I also need to get back into an exercise routine, but I don’t want to. In Europe we walked SO much every day. I miss strolling 500 m to a grocery store and picking up a bag of food to last for a day or two. We’re back to driving to get groceries and while it’s all I’ve known most of my life, I miss the European convenience of walking everywhere. I didn’t have to think about getting my daily steps in; it just happened.
Okay: other things on my mind!
BLOG/WRITING
If you’d told me this time last year I’d be accepted into the Mediavine program, I would have been flummoxed. I’m not even sure I’d heard of Mediavine at that point!
While ads are a nuisance for readers, they are currently the only way I get paid for writing in this space. I love writing. Also, I write a lot and try to put my best effort into it and it takes a tremendous amount of time, so I’m happy to find a way to get a little bit of financial reimbursement.
But I feel like next steps are a bit nebulous.
A high-earning influencer suggested I check out ShopMy, but I don’t really share a lot of products. I looked into it and you have to have a social media platform, so that’s out.
I do basically nothing in terms of SEO. Some people do a great job getting organic search traffic, and my travel posts could probably be golden for this… but it seems like such a buzzkill. I love to write and engage with readers, but anything else feels forced.
The irony is that SEO-heavy travel blogs were a huge part of how I planned for our trip. So I want to make my own travel posts easier to find (keywords, summaries), but the thought of writing in that sort of way holds zero appeal. Basically, I want to write fun posts and hand them over to someone else to do the boring stuff. But the idea of doing that also sounds onerous.
What to do?
For now, I think I’m just going to keep chugging along on the current path because I love it. The blog still feels like my online home base: the place where I write, process, share, and connect. And making a bit of money on the side from ads is an okay place to start. (If you happen to be reading this and have the inside scoop on low-lift SEO, I’m all ears).
Which brings me to…
THE “KITCHEN TABLE” VERSION
Someone recently told me: If your blog is the polished front porch, Patreon is the kitchen table.
I love that framing. The blog is where I share the broader story; Patreon is where I share behind-the-scenes details—the things that don’t always fit neatly into a public post but still feel worth writing down.
If you want to know why I cried on my birthday and how a chance encounter with a peacock managed to redeem a rough few days… Patreon offers the “kitchen-table” version. I wrote about the experience in broad strokes on the blog earlier today in Day #2 on the Danish Island of Møn (+ Visiting Møns Klint), but for various reasons only shared the full story behind a paywall.
A few recent Patreon posts:
- It Wasn’t the Birthday I Wanted… But We Have a New Story to Tell (Paywalled)
- I’m Learning to Be Okay with Paying the Tourist Tax (FREE)
- Celebrating What I Have (Paywalled)
- My Plans for Curating a Summer of Restoration (Paywalled)
- “I’ve Already Met Three New People Today!” (Paywalled)
- Eureka! Coffee Is a Good Investment (For Me) (FREE)
I love blogging, but I know myself well enough to realize I need to declare a short bloggy break. Back next week for Happy Things Friday? Probably. Maybe. We’ll see how many naps happen first.
In the meantime, if you have any questions you’d like answered about our trip, the comment section on this post is the place to go. (Alternatively, feel free to e-mail questions directly to optimisticmusings {at} gmail {dot} com.)
Your turn.
- Give me your best strategies for re-entry!
- Do you get the post-trip/big-event blues?
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I really enjoyed traveling vicariously with you! Thanks for making the effort to document I all. You might consider monetizing your travel planning-experience for other people to utilize.
What a grand adventure!
Rest up, Elisabeth. Everything else can wait 🙂
I think your emotions are totally normal…it’s hard to get back to “real life” after such an adventure! It’s a good idea to take a blogging break, take naps, and adjust slowly.
I really enjoy your Patreon. It’s nice to have a small, private group with no lurking randos skulking about! Ha! Ha!
I don’t understand SEO or anything about professional blogging. Your ads haven’t been too invasive, which is nice, and I think it’s wonderful that you can make a little pocket change from them. I even got a great deal from Bath & Body Works from one of your ads!
Uff, re-entry is hard. So hard. I blogged about it before multiple times how hard it is to going from “there” to “here”… I realize in my case it’s a different kind of re-entry, and it kinda goes both ways for me, but my only advice is to jump back into your routine and give yourself grace (and naps!). It’s ok to wallow and be sad for a little while and to feel a little out of place even. I call it the emotional jetlag – or in your case also a bit of reverse culture shock. It’s absolutely normal.
Consider paying Belle to add SEO stuff after you write? And maybe also consider a meal rotation where she and/or Indy prepare dinner a few times a week? It will be productive parenting and mostly hands off for you. My parents settled for simple things like pasta mixed with canned tuna and canned cream of mushroom soup in exchange for not having to be the ones who prepared dinner! (I only had to boil and drain the pasta, open cans, drain the tuna, mix!) I eventually learned to cook from scratch (married an Indian so mostly that) because my parents had taught me basics of reading recipes and measuring, etc. Your kids are smart—they can do it! You can still cook when you want or need to, but either way, you’re parenting well. You could even delegate parts of the meal to them and still do some of it yourself. Etc!