Nostalgia for my life in California progressed to the point where all of the imperfections, all of the things that sent me on this trip—my dream of a free life, of self-discovery and adventure, of doing hard things and writing about them, of bucking the system and being wild—evaporated. Home seemed like paradise, so fulfilling and lush. How foolish was I to want to leave it? All to go on some stupid, vacuous, self-absorbed man adventure.
