This house is fallin' apart

There is something about traveling that shifts you.

It's almost unidentifiable. You think at first that it is; when you return home, people ask you "So how was it?" and you give them a million different answers. You describe people, places, buildings, moments, food, everything you can think of. You feel something different within you, and you try to voice it by describing the cultural differences you encountered and how they changed you or inspired you. You talk people's ears off with chatter about far-off countries that they're tired of hearing about, but even though you know they're sick to death of you, you feel like you've only scratched the surface. You want to say so much more.

How can you ever encompass the profundity of another life or world or culture within those meager words, the confines that make up conversation?

Everything is different. Your entire universe is rocked by prolonged exposure to a way of living that is completely different from the one you know. It's a whole new perspective, and it challenges every definition of anything you've ever had. It's as if you've spent your life looking at a table as just a table and you suddenly encounter a people who use it as a mode of transportation. It's so different; the idea never occurred to you. Your mind and your definitions are stretched. You start to wonder what else a table could be used for. A chair? A display pedestal for toddlers? A companion? And you are filled with the wonder of this expansion of your accepted ideas and perspectives. You want to share it every moment of every day because it was so importantly profound and moving, and you desperately want everyone back at home to get a taste.

But describing a different life perspective is so much more complicated than describing the functions of a conversation. A thousand conversations couldn't accomplish that.