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I began writing this blog entry back in July while I was still in Peru....and I finally just finished it tonight, but wanted to post it all together as it didn't seem right to split it up. So the beginning is written while in Peru and the rest was written in the States....
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In the past seven months I have traveled to six different countries and worked in four. I’ve been lucky enough to have lived and worked in the United States, Mexico, Belize and Peru and have traveled for leisure to Cuba and Guatemala. I tell you this not to brag, but to explain my life and both the excitement and difficulties that come with moving around to a different country every month and a half. Currently, I am in the rare position to be able to work for an amazing company – ProWorld – which grants me the ability to have this lifestyle. But soon, this lifestyle of being a traveling nomad abroad is going to come to an end and I will be returning back to the States for the next five months or so. As the reality of this begins to sink in and I start to process what this means for my life, I continue to find myself in a state disarray – not quite ready to leave the mountains of Peru, but also somewhat excited for the sweet lakes of northern Minnesota. My heart doesn’t know where to rest as I feel like I am being pulled in two different directions. There is a part of me that feels so alive and content when I am living my life abroad – and it is a completely different life than the one I lead in the United States. I feel like my body reverberates with the energy and simple lifestyle that I get from living in countries like Belize, Mexico and Peru. However, then there is also this part of me that feels like I am missing out on family and friends back at home – and this is what leads me to my feelings of disarray. So today, when I was feeling especially confused – I started to look up quotes about traveling and I found that reading them helped to bring some clarity and explanation to my thoughts. So with that I am going to try to explain my experiences abroad the past six months with quotes, as I feel that they will help me to organize my thoughts and with that, here is the first quote:
“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux
Oh Paul Theroux – how right you are. This life that I currently lead of constantly traveling; never having stable home, community, relationship, and friends is a hard one. It brings to me fantastic life experiences and memories, but also feelings of disruption and being displaced. I feel like my friends who look in on my life feel like it is a glamorous one – and it is to some extent – but it is also really hard, because I fall in love with every place I go, and as soon as I begin to love it, it is time to leave. Currently I am in Peru and I want to stay here for a long time. Finally here I have relationships, I have community, I have a healthy work life, a fantastic environment to live in with mountains in my backyard, fresh veggies and fruits for every meal and contentment. It’s a good life these folks lead in Peru and I am not looking forward to leaving it. So yes, my life is glamorous, but it is also difficult. Falling in love with a place and then leaving it so quickly is never an easy thing and in the moment it can be really hard. But when I look back on it – in retrospect – it is glamorous and amazing and I am often so glad that I took the opportunities to travel, even it if meant me having to be uprooted month after month.
"Good company in a journey makes the way seems shorter." - Izaak Walston
I love this quote, because when I read it alls I can think of is that sweet Jonny Roman of mine. In the past eight months we have traveled through Belize, Guatemala, Peru and the States and each trip has been amazing. We’ve jumped off cliffs into waterfalls in the rainforests, roasted marshmallows over lava, climbed Machu Picchu, watched the sun set and moon rise over Lake Titicaca, and explored Chicago and the Midwest together. We have spent a lot of hours together on bumpy, sweaty buses, in dirty taxicabs, in rental cars, and airports and the time has always flown by. We travel well together. We support one another, watch out for each other, keep each other safe and healthy, and most of all – we have so much fun together. All of those long hours spent traveling seem so much shorter when Jonny and I are together. This past week he came and visited me in the States and traveled around with me going from school to school and state to state – and it was the best week of travels that I have had this fall. Jonny made renting cars fun. He made being lost in a city, while starving and freezing, fun. He calmed me down when I was stressed out, and made me laugh the entire week. And he found all of these little things to appreciate about every city that we were in, which made me more appreciative of them as well.
So long story short – all of these travels that I have had the past year, wouldn’t have been nearly as great if I had to do them all on my own. But because of my friends and having people to share them with – the experience was so much greater. I have traveled a significant amount with people who are not good traveling companions, people who you want to leave at the rest stop in the middle of your journey, and people who complain the entire time, or who bring the excitement of your adventures down. And so therefore I have found that it’s important to find the right traveling companions – ones who help make the journey seem shorter. And I just so happen to be pretty lucky in the fact that my best friend and guy that I love madly also happens to be my favorite traveling companion. We have a lot more traveling to do in our future, and I can’t wait to see whats in store….
“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang
As much as I love traveling and exploring new areas, there is no better feeling than arriving home and sleeping in a familiar bed, with a familiar pillow. I love nothing more than arriving home from a long trip, going to bed and sleeping so hard in my own bed that I wake up and wonder where I am, only to be pleasantly surprised to realize that I am home.
I have traveled so much this past year, that I feel like George Clooney from the movie Up in the Air. I miss home. I miss having constant community. I miss feeling settled. I miss my family and my friends. I miss not being able to see Jonny day in and day out. And I miss not being able to sleep in the same bed night after night.
So yes, there is something beautiful and exciting about traveling and through this traveling I have experienced amazing things. Though, I think that I am ready to stay in one place for a while. Sleep in a familiar bed with a comfortable pillow. Use my own bathroom and get rid of my travel-size shampoo. I’m ready for all of this. And I think that I’ve found a way to combine the beautifulness of travel with a constant feeling of being settled….Stay Tuned.
