A Little bit Closer to Home

A good song to accompany my thoughts. lol

Traveling just might be one of the most amazing experiences a person can have. In this life, there are lots of those; every sunset, every random act of kindness, epiphanies, every time you love or feel deeply loved, overcoming challenges, holding a brand new baby rich with the taste of innocence and purity. Yes, there are many moments everyday where we learn, laugh, and cry. But traveling, there's nothing like it. You get into a giant machine with soaring wings and miraculous power. You are lifted high above everything and watch how quickly it shrinks away. It is almost as if you have reached a new level existence. One without little problems, ugliness, flaws, maybe, dare I say, a better place. One where you cannot be bothered with pettiness for you are among the cotton candy clouds, flying over the lightly snow dusted dinosaur back mountains, over miles of the great ocean and millions of ant people.

Then, out of nowhere, you are dropped in a completely different world, might as well be. You cannot even comprehend space or time or fathom that you are really that far away from where you happen to call home. For all you know you could be anywhere. You remember seeing this place on a map of the world, but are you really here? Is there really here? The first thing you notice is how different the air is as it slaps you in the face, fills your lungs and surrounds you in a welcoming, almost suffocating embrace. Someone bumps into you and ignores you completely, or showers you in "Excuses moi's". Either way you can tell they are much much different here. You are filled with fear. They dress funny, and although you can hear every sound they make perfectly, you just cannot seem to understand them. The sun is blinding, the cloudiness is dreary and depressing. The buildings are different, the cars are adorably to small.

Then...suddenly, you see something familiar. You began to realize how many things are the same. You hear a person laugh and you know they are happy.You watch a girl turn away with her arms crossed from a boy, and recognize this same frustrating argument of misunderstanding. You see a child whine in hungry desire for a toy, you see two people in love. You begin to see a set of bones covered in skin, with a heart that has been touched and broken, and a mind that is lost and searching. The problems are the same, just as small and just as torturing. The big questions are just as unanswered, everyone is angry with their creator, and everyone comes home to a person they fight to stay in love with, and children they hope and pray they will teach the right lessons to. "YES!" you realize, "this is exactly the same as the place, wherever that is and however far that is from here, that I just came from." And this, this is the beauty of travel. "Blue, the most human color of all."


Carrie's travel quote: "Every place harnessess magic, and it will show you if you stop trying to mold the magic into what you want it to be."