There’s something about traveling that makes it always uncomfortable. We can travel in all the luxury we can afford, but nothing prepares us for the unexpected twists, delays, turns, jarring and new experiences.
I remember backpacking eight years ago, weathering spontaneous decisions by not flinching even as I slept in a insect-infested room with a cold shower. These days I feel the difference of just the pillows keenly – they are not the same as the ones I am used to sleeping with at home. Then there were the fourteen hour bus-rides I used to take to faraway places. Now I zip around in an UberX, too tired to take a thirty minute bus ride.
Am I losing my sense of adventure, or have I become one of those always-anxious, controlling, workaholics? Have I lost my capacity to not only feel free, but be free?
I comfort myself by telling myself that I am preserving my energy for a different kind of adventure. In my youth I thrived on spontaneous, non-committal adventures, now I am learning to walk each step with a very deliberate presence, yet keeping my heart open to being called in new directions.
I have had to give up people, places, situations, objects I love. Through traveling I am learning to understand what it means to love freely. I love, that is why I leave. Staying longer than we should only seeks to artifically prolong a moment, without realizing that clinging on is the antithesis of love.
All things change and all things move, and that is how nature has always chosen to demonstrate her love. Even a rock changes its form with time. What would the world be like, if we have learned to love this process of change, instead of constantly trying to hold on?
I walk with a renewed sense of freedom, coupled with a sense of purpose. Every second I am loving what I experience, then learning to let go, knowing that my consciousness will never be the same again, and that is enough. The knowing that everything we love changes us permanently, and we too, change everything we love, permanently.
Life will never be the same again, and life has never been the same, it is our expectation that it stays the same, that brings us not only the greatest grief, but also the biggest obstacle to fulfilling our potential as a humanity capable of great leaps and evolution.