After spending a week in Southern California soaking up the sun, a feeling has stayed with me. I’m not really sure what it is, but as relieved as I was to come home, I’ve also had this sense that my home has changed. It doesn’t seem the same as it did when I left.

California is absolutely a place for dreamers… As my husband and I waited at an outdoor table in Hollywood for our In-N-Out burgers, a woman with a blunt black bob, pale skin and red lips paced along the sidewalk and read lines from a script. California is also a place for crack-heads, foreigners, bros, the “forever” young, and strategically placed rich people.

It has, is, and probably always will be an inspiration for many… It’s where Led Zeppelin went to “make a new start,” where Don Draper escapes his real life, and the place Marilyn Monroe called home for most of her life.

Although I felt moments of pure West Coast Wonder, like the shallow pit in my stomach at the sight of a wave twice my height rushing towards me, or the smiling-while-I-ate satisfaction chewing mouthfuls of fish taco, or the flush of goosebumps at seeing my heroine’s hand prints in 63-year-old cement, I also had an overall Big Picture experience. My world, and my life, is very small. Just a grain of sand–maybe one of the many that settled in my bikini bottom for most of the trip, but a spec none-the-less. When I left home, I felt content. When I returned home, I felt insignificant and my world small. Do I want to be significant and my world big? I’m not sure about that, either.

I suppose everyone has moments of “what if” and “what else,” it’s just where and when they pop up that are unique. I suppose that’s the untold consequence of travelling.