“Home is the place where others are thinking of you.” – Old Sean
Exiting East
After my time in Qatar, I finally returned to the United States, gradually looping back to the state I most frequently call home; Texas.
Despite living abroad for most of my adult life, Texas is probably the closest thing I have to a permanent settlement. Many of my oldest and truest friends have built their lives here, so there’s forever a calling on that patch of land.
On this occasion, I spent a couple of weeks in DFW moving in with my friend Arianna. I arrived to a house of lovely chaos, as Arianna was fostering a tangle of six kittens, all named after various flowers (Lotus, Lily, Thistle, etc.).
While I confess that I’m not as useful as I’d like to be, it was easy enough to slip into a routine while back in the states. My days were spent calling friends, seeing who was available to meet up. My mornings were filled with little rambles with the kittens and early afternoons prepping food and sorting out my next plan in life.
Hemisphere Hop
One of the biggest hurdles I ran into, unfortunately, was a lack of planning. My company in Saudi Arabia had been painfully cagey about the details for my flight home. When I finally got my confirmed pay and confirmed flight, I had just a couple of days to throw everything together in a pair of bags and prepare for my one-day layover in Qatar.
One of the truly large missteps I’ve made on my trip to the Middle East was overpacking. As a rule, I usually only travel with a single backpack, full stop. That’s enough to live off of. But considering my job in the Middle East was meant to take six months, I splurged on space and decided to add a duffle with extra clothes and comforts.
As time wound on, I grew to regret this. The extra supplies essentially anchored me in Saudi Arabia and ensured I was reluctant to purchase my own international flight home with the added expenses of bulky checked luggage.
Again and again, I’m reminded that less leads to swiftness. Upon returning to Texas, I immediately set about pairing down my gear so I’m now living out of one glorious backpack once again.
There’s something incredibly wholesome about returning to core basics of global vagabonding.
Bygone Dallas Days
While I found my time in Dallas extremely restorative, I wouldn’t call it exhilarating. Indeed, much of my time was spent meeting old friends and lounging at nice restaurants. I spent time walking the entirety of White Rock Lake. A buddy took me to Free Play Arcade, a retro gaming center. Other hours were spent catching up with high school friends over Japanese curry. Another day was graced with visiting to the Dallas Discovery Center Butterfly Pavilion. There were pockets of time spent enjoying Americanized Chinse food and other moments of helping out around the house and neighborhood. Spare moments were spent devouring books that had created a rather compelling reading list.
It was a brief period of domestic bliss in a life which doesn’t offer much of that.
Sadly, it was over too soon. Or perhaps, it was over in the exact right amount of time. I was soon due to fly out again, this time lunging towards the East Coast with my singular backpack slung weightily over my shoulder.
This is a short post, but I feel that it’s a necessary one. No travel blog would be complete without recording the feelings found when returning home. And home this was.
But it’s now time to continue the journey. So on that note,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written May 7th, 2024
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