May, like Spring

A dog needs a name

It was very cold, and while I was wrapping the third blanket tighter around me, I thought: "Well, little success today. You keep yourself warm. Good." The dog was laying on my feet, probably the warmest spot when I felt into my body. Something I did not want to do too much right now. And not later today or tomorrow. Also I had not checked in with myself yesterday or the day before that. I just wanted to close my eyes, pull the blanket over me again, the dog on my feet and listen to the rain pounding onto the roof.

That I had depression that came in waves all throughout my life, especially since teenage years, I only had figured out through books. I had been reading some books that my sister had recommended to me, and even sent me one from Germany. A lot of them were about self help and improvement, to become happy with yourself. Finished reading? No, none of them. When I look back now, I was fine for long periods of time when I was busy. And boy, I kept myself on my feet. After I finished school, I became one of these people that took off into a so-called "Gap year".

For so many of us, fellow travelers I have met later throughout this world, it never was a year to fill a gap. It became our life, never stopped moving, always in transit, always exploring.

46 countries and 9 years later, I felt burned out. Traveling gives you so much, but it will also take a lot of you. In the last weeks I had talked and written with some friends that have been scattered around the planet. Life on the move is easy if you are 19, with 29 years it feels much different.

What I had learned from these conversations with Nelly in Australia, with Shawn in Canada and Arthur in Mexico, that travel burnout is real. I talked with others about it, people with normal lifes. People with jobs that they attended from Monday to Friday, had a sports club they went to on Wednesday afternoon and a barbecue with their neighbours on Sunday evening. But not too long, the kids had to go to bed. People with normal lifes never understood when I described what I feel now, why I feel so shitty.

"But you are on holiday all the time" and "When are you going on your next trip?" are the things I hear the most. A holiday is not full time traveling. A holiday could never make you see and experience the things, places, people and events you have seen around the globe. We live in a beautiful world. I know that for sure.

Travel burnout is a real thing, of course it is nothing someone would officially recognise as a disease of the mind, something you can cure with medicine. The burnout is one thing. After travel depression is another one. Just like a normal depression, it can come in waves. It is something my fellow travelers understood, and some of them warned me about it. To take it easy, have a smooth transition into a normal life after years of moving around the globe. I think I have circled 7 times around planet earth. In both hemispheres of course. I had done a lot.

But the feeling of wanting a home, a safe base I could stay in for a long time. My own place. So I did that, I moved to Ireland, the country that had given me homely vibes three years ago, while I drove along the Atlantic Ocean. I scratched all my money together and bought a house.

A cottage. An old one, at least 200 years old, the property guy had said. The interior was old, charmingly rustic, but it worked. One thing that did not work was the electric heating, and I hadn't managed to fire up the wet wood yet. There was a pile of finely chopped wood sitting in the firepit. If I opened my eyes I could see it from here, from the couch.

The couch was in the middle of the room, where I was laying on, under my three blankets. The cottage was tiny, it was all I could afford. But it was mine and I had put a lot of work into it over summer. The kitchen ceiling had running water, hot and cold. The oven was working and I found a cheap toaster. The books from my sister were scattered around the couch table, the big bookshelf that was sitting in the middle. Some books were on the floor in my bedroom too. Some books on the little shelf next to the toilet. I had a TV, but I never turned it on. I was not even sure if it was connected to electricity or any channels.