A Traveler's Heart

When I first step foot into another place it is overwhelming. I don't know what I am eating, where I am going, and I do not know how to interface with the people around me. I impose everything I know about the world on to my current surroundings, and try as I might, my previous knowledge and experience fails me. Is this a comfortable feeling? No. Is it exhausting? More than you can imagine. But for the first time, I feel truly alive. New flavors tantalize and tickle my senses, anxiety crawls up from my very lost feet, hits my stomach with a thud until it makes it's way up to my ears, deafening me with sounds of my own heartbeat. I experience something very new every single day. When I am completely overloaded, I return home for a mini comma to soak it all in. But every time I am home for very long, I get this twitch, I start prepping my veins for more. "Give me the juice!" I scream into the suburban void.

Lately people have been inquiring about my upcoming move to Thailand, and while they are curious about lots of things, the thing most people seem to want to know is, "Why?"

I tell them it is because this is the best time to do it. Because I don't have any commitments and I want to, "get it out of my system" before I do. Before I throw myself by the wayside for tiny feet and tiny hands and a demanding job so I can feed their not so tiny appetites. But the truth is, best stated by Clayton B. Cornell, "traveling doesn't get traveling out of your system." There are times when I'm away and I get burnt out. I miss Chipotle, hot showers and my bed. In fact I'd kill just to have my pillow. But never have I felt, well, satisfied. 

As much as I keep saying it, I know in my heart I will never be done seeing the world. It is how I became who I am, and only while doing it do I feel completely myself.

So let me try to clear up what I am NOT going for:

I am not running away or trying to delay my life. There are lots of things I do not like about the stereotypically life that surrounds me, but I am fully aware that I can live my life differently right here. I understand that a location is only what you make it. I am aware that having children is not a death sentence, and I will humbly accept this title and privilege when the day comes.

I am not running towards something or trying to find something that is missing. Traveling will teach you things that nothing else will. It will most definitely teach you about humanity, community, religion, about yourself. But if it is happiness, contentment, or answers that you are looking for, you will travel the entire world and never find it. These are things that can only be found from looking inward. These are things that we wake up every single day of our lives and chose to feel. The surroundings, the circumstances, these are just arbitrary trivialities in this existence.

So why, you ask once more?

I am simply running. . .

There's a fiery hunger in my soul for life. I am trying to live life to the fullest. I take walks at night because I must admit, I am a bit voyeuristic, and behind almost every window I find the same thing, an exhausted group of lumps behind a glaring television screen. Standing there looking in, I feel as if I've unplugged from the Matrix. Part of me wants to bang on their doors, "Wake up!" I want to scream! "This is your life right now and there is no Ctrl+Z!" But the fact is most will never get up, unplug, or leap. All I can do is slip away in the nighttime and enjoy the world so it does not go unnoticed. 

The next question I am getting asked a lot is, "Are you afraid?" Truthfully, sure. Mostly afraid of the pieces of my loved ones lives I'll miss, but Ecclesiastes 11:4, NLB: If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. Also I think you can tell from my disdain and unrest that I am more afraid not to go. I am more afraid to leave this world with my dreams in the ground, than to leave it.

As always, my blog will accompany me into the unknown, and I would be absolutely smitten if you would subscribe and take the journey with me. 

All my love,
Carrie