story but in so many others. Yet, there is a question and
not one that we expected. It’s a towering dilemma, one
that we currently face, and there is little written about
it. Perhaps it’s time for discussion, to spread caution,
raise awareness and find a solution with fellow adventure
travellers.
There was no manual or road map for what it took for
us to do what we have done so far. By living our lives, we
are writing the manual and drafting the road map, wrap-
ping the tour and returning to a compound to regroup
and plan for what we imagined we’d be leaving in the
unknown to recover in the ‘known’. That is when we
encountered … IT.
The first experience with IT was on a phone call with a
SWM dealer who I’d wrangled in to give me the scoop on
the new SWM adventure bike for a YouTube video I was
working on.
After a bit of gabbing he asked of our story. I told him
and the first words out of his mouth were, "Oh man, you
are fucked".
He went on to explain IT as I sat fidgeting. He ex-
plained that reintegrating into society even if it was
temporary was essentially impossible. He said it takes
half the time you were out in the thick to begin to settle
in properly but that the lust will never leave and one's
relationships, old and new will forever be awkward as
the parameters of ‘normal’ life are just too different to be
intimately relatable.
“Oh no!”, I sat there thinking.
“This dude is making way too much sense to discount it
as drivel.” And the truth was that I had already been feel-
ing it manifest in the individual lives of myself and family.
Our bond, thick as thieves, like one large ongoing inside
joke, that no one else could understand.
For us, it seemed like our lives are too different, too far
out there, for others to bother talking about and inversely,
theirs are just a little too mundane to find excitement to
discuss with any real curiosity.
We’re not judgemental, it’s just a fact in many cases. An
example is a loved one who thinks we are making a huge
mistake foregoing security and never wants to talk about
the gun fight we were once in.
I can’t pretend to be excited about which character will
be voted off this or that ‘reality’ show. It’s not a competi-
tion or a ‘this or that’ is better … it’s just an ‘is’. IT is an ‘is’.
And it manifests itself in so many ‘incongruent to nor-
mal life’ ways that it begins to undermine peace to some
degree. Add a lack of adventure, with a sprinkle of con-
TRAVERSE 69