Stateside

     I would not expect to be on a plane currently, with the hours passing toward a touchdown in LAX. 

I did not plan this.

    This turn of events has come like most in my life this past year—with uncertainty and my arms outstretched as I dive in. I am learning not to regret life or my decisions made; I dwell enough in my past. I am learning to look forward more often, but not with my heard over my heels. The road has turned, but I am walking on my own. My Type A personality has been thrown a curve ball this past year; I do not sit around and create detailed lists of what “I want to do.” I am just pursuing them. 

No more daydreaming. 

     For years I have wanted to “just go.” And I remind myself everyday that I am doing, going, becoming myself more and more with each passing day. I am in love with living, and the unknowing it brings.

     My plane lands in 2 hours, and in a few weeks, I am setting out on a new journey with a man I have only just met-- yet feel like I have known for many years. In this moment I cannot fully explain our connection, nor do I feel the need to explain my madness to others. I am not following him. I am going with him; joining him on his journey. He is pursuing me in ways I have not felt for a long time. Each of our life’s journeys have brought us together in an unlikely manner in Chile, 6,000 miles away from home. Factors playing out which I know would never have fallen together in the U. S. more wonderfully. My pursuit to go west sent me south first then 180 degrees north to see where life may lead with him.

Roads ever wandering on and on.

     Although I am returning to the states—one goal I wanted to avoid in 2015—I do not feel like I have failed myself. My longing for home and family has been tugging in my soul for some time now. As my journey takes me to foreign lands, my senses tell me that rest requires going home. 

"It is the instinct to return, to go to a place we remember. It is the ability to find, whether in dark or in daylight, one's home place. We all know how long it's been, we find our way. We go through the night, over strange land, through tribes of strangers, without maps and asking of the odd personages we meet along the road, 'what is the way?'"

Clarissa Estes

     Home, however, is no longer a physical place for me; it has become my head’s resting place at night—where I find myself comfortable. One lesson learned from my Chile trip is that when intuition tells you to leave—go. Do not vacate a place because you are scared of the future, leave because you are not growing. Go because life requires you to learn, to search out, to be amazed by meteorites in the sky, to see the vast blanket of stars tracing time in the universe, to hurt, and to love. Chile was beautiful, and the two months living there was an experience I will forever take with me. But my heart calls me home now, with the promise of my return to the southern end of the world soon enough in my timeline. 

     Again, my journey is far from over. Soon, with California as my origin, I will set out on a cross country road trip, vehicle still to be determined. And I cannot wait! I am ecstatic, for I have wanted to do this for a very long time now. Traveling the U.S. more extensively has been my dream for several years now, but my love for international travel has taken over more recently. My desires lead me to experience as much of this world as I can before my 100 years end. With this next chapter, I have a partner wishing to do the same and at the same point in his life even if our years vary. Discussing plans and researching ideas with him only fuels my fire to return stateside and begin our journey together. Searching his eyes strengthens my desire to be with him and to take him as he is, where he is, right now, right here. Unspoken words with unfinished sentences. And everything is right. My mind is determined, and I can make sense of my decisions. Maybe one day in the future I can complete my thoughts on him with full confidence, but for now, my time with him is enough for me—just as it always should be. Our paths brought us together for a reason. Only God has the ability to see time in fast-forward. 

One of my prayers is that life will stay this way—for a very long time.