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For the past two weeks, on the final leg of this retirement journey, Scot and I have have been watching as daily — almost hourly- the flights take off from Honolulu back to the US. This has been making me reflect on what our return after such a once-in-a-lifetime experience will mean. Indeed, it’s caused me to think a lot about what the whole concept of home means.

For more than 4 months now, Scot and I have lived very successfully on only what we can carry in one suitcase and one backpack each. On our trip of almost 31,000 miles, this has made me realize how few possessions one actually needs, and also how important strategic laundry stops can be. I have always had a great affection for turtles, and part of my admiration for them has always been precisely that they literally carry their home with them in their backs. As we’ve made our way from place to place, I’ve often felt a bit like a those turtles.

And what about that return to the US after 4 months living in other countries? Already, being here in Hawaii and thus back in our home country, we’ve had to retrain ourselves to move to the right on roads and sidewalks after being in 5 countries that do everything on the left; we’ve had to think about tipping again after being in countries where it isn’t done , because they pay their servers a decent wage; we’ve had to get used to looking for Men’s and Women’s bathroom signs after experiencing countries that quietly and unfussily make them all unisex; we’ve come back to despairing at all the wasteful and unreliable packaging after seeing how 90% of packaging in Australia and New Zealand is NOT plastic. Most distressing of all, we’re coming back to a country where it still seems quite possible that Donald Trump, without a doubt the single most destructive figure in American history, may very well become our president again.

In short, we come back with mixed feelings, immensely grateful for all the things we’ve been able to experience, and hoping beyond hope that America continues to be the land of the free, and the home of the brave.