Not a bad little story but it felt like the science fiction was sort of grafted on...
I don't know that I agree with that. Yes, I can see how, say, a POW coming back from Vietnam would feel the same sense of isolation, but he wouldn't come to the same conclusion - to go back to the jungle.
The thing is, all Human truths are universal, and any story that makes a good SF story can be told in any setting. Some stories are definitely
easier in an SF setting, but the essential elements are about the people, not the backdrop.
Take the carjacking story from a couple of 'casts ago... that story could easily be the opening vignette on Hawaii Five Oh. Or it could be the a Gunsmoke episode... but I like the ideas that the author presented: culture changes around you in really unexpected ways. The culture was alien even to US, and that made me identify with the narrator that much more.
What really has me interested about this story is what the narrator left behind: when she left, did she realize she was going to lose everyone she'd ever known? Did she consider that to her family and friends, she was effectively dead the moment she stepped foot on that ship? My guess is that she was a loner even before leaving Earth, and that coming back and being alone was really nothing new, in that respect.
Which brings me to the inevitable question: if you could go in to space and visit an alien world, knowing that the price was to leave behind everyone you ever knew, would you go?