On the Road Again?

My heart is on the open road. It is in planes, trains and automobiles. It is in moving forward, seeing the beautiful things, touching history and imagining a future. It is in going places. I used to want to be an anthropologist. I used to want to travel the world and do documentary ethnographic research. Whatever that meant. It seemed cool to do. Somehow life got in the way of living. Fear set in, more immediate goals arose.

Last year I went abroad. It was a long time coming. It was fabulous. I don’t know how to describe it. Its like your soul, just opening up… I get the itch to go often, but I deny myself that urge. But every year, come spring, I’m ready to plan the summer with a vengance. I cannot pretend anymore that it is not exactly what I need.

So. I’m trying to decide. Should I travel this summer? When a lot of people answer these questions, they think of the hows. How will I fund it, how will I find the time? But I know for me, once I say yes, once I affirm it and accept it, the hows fall into place.

Right now it seems really foolish. I just got this new apartment and I don’t know where I will work in the fall. Financially it could be a big setback, or it might not make a dent.

One thing about me, I want to know all the rules, all the exceptions, and all the odds of winning or losing before I get in the game. I want to know how the movie ends before I watch it. But certainty doesn’t come and neither does forever. In the past 2 years, I’ve seen young people drop dead without warning. I’ve seen old people get to the end of their lives only to admit that they didn’t live it the way they wanted to. I’ve seen people scared to dream a new dream. Its dawning on me that life is not promised and time is not promised. It seems like, if I can do it, I must do it. If adventures seem difficult now, how hard will they be when I have a mortgage and a family.

But my grandmother is getting sick also…. Who know’s how long she has…. Its hard to plan for the future when there are so many variables out of your control…..