For an entire year, I can’t count how many times Megan and I uttered this statement.

At this time last year…

• we were at Machu Picchu
• we were on our Salt Flats tour
• we were in Tayrona National Park
• we were on a Thai beach
• we were at the Taj Mahal
• we were getting ready to come home

And now?  That’s over.  Last Friday, October 8, marked the one year anniversary of our return home to St. Louis after a 51 week trip around the world.  Tomorrow (October 15) marks the two year anniversary of our departure.  Where does the time go?

So many emotions have flooded my heart, mind, and soul in these past 3.5 years since the initial inception of The Trip, the subsequent planning, informing of our friends and family, quitting of our jobs, the going away parties, the leaving, the trip itself, the coming home, the being home for an entire year (which still seems unbelievable to me).

So what has changed?  Now that we’re home, what is different?

Let’s start with the obvious.

For one, I am trying a career change, all of which would have never happened if it wasn’t for the trip.  I dreamed of being a writer since I was young.  I never envisioned writing about travel growing up (I wanted to be a sportswriter), but until the final year of college (where I majored in journalism), that was the plan.  I got a bit lost along the way, but now I realized this is what I wanted to do all along.

While the last year hasn’t been filled with exotic vacations and trips, travel does remain our top priority.  We have traveled just enough to keep us from going batshit crazy, but we do have a bad itch to go somewhere outside of the country again.  I foresee 2011 as that time.

We are in no hurry to purchase a home, with the fear of it tying us down for the rest of our lives and ultimately hindering our travel.  The same with having kids.  We want them, just not quite yet.  But when we do, we are determined not to let that obstruct any travel goals.  We have talked at length about exposing our children to travel, particularly on the international level, from the get-go.  We never thought that a possibility before the trip, even in the planning stages.  It wasn’t until we were on the road, meeting families and hearing of long term travel with children, that we considered this.  We thought that kids meant the end of this type of travel, which was part of the initial reason for heading out on the road.  We now realize that is not the case.  Like anything, it’s all about priority and simply making it happen.

What did the trip teach us about our relationship?

Changing careers and thinking of travel in a new light are things that are going to change in every person who embarks on an adventure like we did.  But what are the less-obvious things that changed?  How did the trip change us as a couple?

I think we really learned to deal with adversity and stressful situations together in a much more constructive and different manner than at home.  So many times we were put in uncomfortable positions while traveling, and we only had each other to lean on.  We had to remain calm with one another (obviously this didn’t always happen) or it turned ugly quick.  We couldn’t simply pick up the phone and call a family member or friend and vent to them.  We had to put 110% of our trust in one another.  Even though we had been together for 8+ years when we flew out of St. Louis on that day two years ago, and even though we had spent tons of time together, we never spent 24 hours a day together for longer than our three week Europe trip.

Many of friends were concerned about our well-being, saying things like, “Aren’t you afraid you’re going to kill each other?”

Honestly, the strength of our relationship was the least of my concerns before leaving.  And while our relationship has changed in the past two years, it has been for the better and has really strengthened.  My wife is plugging along as an attorney again, which is not her passion.  She works long hours and sacrifices a ton, all so I can try my hand at this whole writing thing.  I will be forever grateful for this.

More than anything though, we realized that we can overcome any obstacle together.  The idea of the trip was so foreign to us at first, and when we ultimately made the decision to do it, we were undoubtedly nervous.  So we leaned on each other for support.  When one was doubting whether it could be done or if we were crazy for doing something so unconventional, the other was right there to offer encouragement.

The dreaded pendulum

Since we’ve been home, we’ve both gone through ups and downs.  At first, we were ecstatic to be home, to see everyone, to have a familiar place to call home again, and to eat and drink the things we missed for a whole year.  Like anything, the honeymoon period didn’t last forever.  Sometimes we were really happy about being home.  Sometimes we were really depressed that it was all over.  For some reason, we never seemed to feel the same emotions at the same time.  When one was happy and content with being home again, one was dreaming about hitting the road.  I didn’t write for nearly three months after being home, mainly because I was just too sad that it was over.  I was afraid that if I did write about it, I would miss traveling so much that it would be unbearable (I now realize that writing would have helped me deal with my emotions in a much more constructive manner than ignoring them).

For too long I sat and brooded about the fact that we weren’t traveling anymore.  For a year and a half we were saving and planning the trip.  Then for a year we were traveling.  After that honeymoon of being home again was gone, I honestly felt lost.  There were no more future plans.  It was back to the real world.  I wondered if we would ever do something like it again.  I feared that we wouldn’t, and that scared the hell out of me.

Then I thought to myself, “Do I really want to do it again?”  I went back and forth, back and forth, my ideas and thoughts changing on a near daily basis.  I remembered the massive highs.  I remembered the colossal lows.  The worst part about all of this was that I just couldn’t make up my mind.  One day I was happy and content, loving the fact that I didn’t have to lug a backpack around everywhere I went and live on a crazy low budget, writing down everything we spent to the penny.  I loved being home, with my wife, my dogs, my family, my friends.  Then the next day I would lament the fact that we weren’t doing anything spectacular anymore.  We weren’t going to see world wonders on a weekly basis, eating exotic foods and meeting unique people.

It took nearly an entire year, but I have honestly just come to terms and accepted our current situation.  I have finally accepted that this is home and truly where I want to be, another year-long trip is not on the horizon, and that’s okay (at least right now ).  And I have also realized that if we really did decide to someday do it all again, we could.  We already did it once, we know what it takes, we know it’s possible.  At the risk of sounding too kindergarten-teacher-ish, this whole experience taught us that we really can do anything we put our minds to.

What now?

I find us different than many other long-term travelers in that we have always lived in one city (with the exception of college, which was still only a three hour drive from home), and until our RTW trip, we didn’t have a ton of travel experience, especially international travel.  The vast majority of our family and friends are here, and we love that, and while we may end up moving somewhere else or traveling long-term again at some point, it will never be forever.  We just love home too much, and we will always end up back here.  We don’t really have an urge to become full time vagabonders.  While we love to travel and our trip was amazing, we were more than ready to come home last October.  That being said, if someone offered us the chance to take off on a six month trip tomorrow, our bags would be packed within the hour.

So now we just live our lives, both being happy with our current situations.  We truly are blessed with an awesome family, fantastic friends, and a great city that we call home.  While our work situation isn’t ideal, it certainly isn’t terrible either.  We will continue to travel, and while we have only been on long weekend trips since our return, we are heading to New York City for six days around New Year’s Eve.  We are also trying to make a decision about travel plans for 2011.  Turkey, the Galapagos, London, Germany, and others have all been discussed as possibilities.

Good ol’ cliches

After that, who knows?  You may not like them, but cliches are cliches for a reason.  One big thing that this trip has taught us is that we are here to live life to its fullest.  Life is short, and I simply won’t accept a life that I do not enjoy.  We may go through phases where we aren’t as happy as we can be or once were, and we may even be miserable at times (hopefully not often), but overall, this entire experience, the idea, the planning, the trip, the return, all have combined to vastly change my outlook on life.  We will not do anything simply because we’re supposed to.  We will make life plans based on what makes us happy, what we want to do.

Maybe that is selfish.  I know many, especially people older than I (and probably plenty my age) probably think that outlook is what’s wrong with the younger generation today (I’m not sure that at 32 years-old I’m considered the younger generation anymore, but that’s neither here nor there).  But I have grown up seeing my parents and their generation work their asses off for 30 and 40+ years.  Even with all that hard work, I wonder if my parents will ever be able to retire and live the life they deserve.

There’s more than one way to live

More than anything, this whole experience has taught me that there is more than one way to live, more than one path to take in life.  I say do what makes you happy.  If that’s a big house and fancy cars, then do it.  If that’s not having a home and traveling nonstop, then do it.  If that’s living simply enough to be able to pick up and head out of town for a week when a good travel deal shows up in your inbox, then do it.  If that’s working as hard as you can to provide for your family and make sure your children have it better than you, then do it.

No matter what your life goals are, no matter how you’ve been raised, no matter what society deems as a template for life, just realize that most of us have the freedom to do it another way.  The vast majority, if not all, of the people reading this are really lucky to be born when and where we were, and thus we have been given the opportunity to do what so many in this world are unable.  So embrace life, do what it is that you love, and enjoy every moment we have on this wonderful Earth.