I hung out with my friend Christa tonight, who is leaving on Wednesday to spend a month in India. I really like talking with Christa, but I always come away from hanging out with her with my wheels turning and feeling such...anxiety - for lack of a better word. But anxiety in a good way. When Christa and I talk, I get glimpses of what I really want to do with my life. Where I really want to be. How I really want to live. And how much potential I have inside myself to do so.
Lately I've met a few people who don't really have a drive to travel. To be honest, I didn't really believe those people existed, but they do. And its been strange to interact with them and talk about traveling because it usually ends with them saying something like, "Yeah, thats nice that you really like to travel." But its so much more than that. Some people like to travel, but I feel it as a tangible ache inside me. Since I first stepped onto Honduran soil two years ago, traveling has been inside my soul like a virus. Feeding off of my very core, demanding more of me. it won't let me sleep or eat or think or work without thinking about it, without planning for it, without feeling the soul wrenching ache to travel inside me.
And the thing is, I love Canada. I love edmonton in the summer...the long days and the sun and the trees and the festivals. And I love my home at harvest time, endless fields of wheat and mustard waving in the wind. And I love the people who live here. I love being grounded by them and having them as part of my daily life. But all this love of being grounded and in continuous community is contrasted with my desire for the fluidity of travel and movement and experiencing new places and people and culture and food and landscape.
Maybe that is why I come away with my talks with Christa with such anxiety. My heart lies in two places, in two lives, in two ideals and I don't know how I will ever learn to balance the two. Or if it is even possible. But choosing one over the other would be settling for something that wouldn't make me quite whole. Either way.
So what do I do?
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3 comments:
become a lonely planet travel guide on the tv shows, or write the books. travel to work, and work to travel. there you go,
hails
i agree with the hails. When I read your blog...I know what you need to do. What you cannot not do - if that makes sense. We are all meant to experience bigger things. You have taught me that, dear friend. I hope you ponder what these bigger things might be for you. Maybe you already know it in your heart. I am thinking of you now, as I sit on this futon.
wherever you go, I will come visit you.
Cait
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