the coming home blues

This past week I came home from a trip to Mexico. I stayed at an all inclusive resort, where the need to make decisions did not exist. I did not have to think about how to manage my time in order to most effectively complete my to-do list. I did not have to decide what to make for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I did not have to drive anywhere. I said multiple times on that trip I have not had a critical thought since I got here. After a few weeks of having my trauma brain be in the driver’s seat, it felt cathartic to exist without an agenda.

Coming home is always an adjustment. I never feel the urge to enter back into my reality of day-to-day living. Most often, I cry when it is time to leave.

With signing a year long lease, plus all the feelings and experiences that came after the fact, I do not know if I am unhappy with my choices or if I am uncomfortable with them. Did I do something misaligned or do I just need to settle in to this reality? Can it be both?

I said in therapy this week, I am the most content with how my life appears from the outside than possibly ever before. I have a “real job,” and I live alone with my dog in the city. I would be happy to go to a high school reunion and present that to my peers. But on the inside, I feel restricted and claustrophobic, trapped even. Like the hose that carries my lifeline has been kinked. There’s a pressure mounting.

I am wondering how much of these decisions, a job back home without an end date and a year long lease, I made because I genuinely wanted to or because I wanted to want to.

All in all, this week went as expected. I felt burdened with the need to make so many given choices in a day. I felt and feel overwhelmed with the tasks of being an adult. Please don’t think of me as soft or lazy, but this can’t be how I live. There has to be more to life than going from point A to B with no space in between. I do not want to live a life that makes me sad to come home to. To me, that seems like a waste of opportunity. Yes, I do love living close to all those I care about, but I also miss the freedom of being in a new place. There has to be a balance. I want to find the balance.