on the road again, destination little matters

Written a week ago, whist in transit... 

On one of York's historic streets...

Passport, check. Ticket, check. Cash and cards, check. Yoga mat, check. Clothing good for layering, check. UK/Europe adapter, swim suit and rain gear, reading material, check, check, check!

Packing went so smoothly this time that I couldn’t help but feel I'd forgotten something. Everything fit--and this time with room to spare!

Or maybe, just maybe, I am getting more skillful at this. In the last year, I've not been in one place longer than 3 months, most of the time less. When I uprooted myself, I didn’t think it would go on for more than a year. I had no timeline in mind. What I did have was an intention: I wanted to live fully, I wanted to wake up in the morning knowing that I was where I wanted to be, I wanted to love myself enough to answer my heart’s call.  I wanted to be happy.

As for the journey that started the day I left Boracay June 2011, it is not over. That feeling that I had as I crossed between the tiny island--which had been a safe harbor for me for 5 years--and the mainland, that awesome sense of the great unknown before me, the vast creative potential that existed in a leap of faith—most of all in myself—continues to this day. I feel it now as I fly to London. Just as this great big Boeing is conveying me to another land, this feeling is lifting me up, it is transporting me, it is helping me transcend.

I think, to an outsider, it may look like I am wandering around aimlessly. There have been many phases of my life where I was firmly rooted to one place, with all the “stable” fixings: a job, a home, a partner, but I recognize that I was actually drifting.

And yet, now, often with no clear destination, I feel like I am finally getting somewhere. Life’s journey—and I don’t think you have to be traveling to be on it, it depends on who you are and the path that works for you—is spontaneous and surprising. At other times, it feels winding and treacherous. It’s not always easy, but its rewards are incalculable.

For me the process itself is as important as the final destination because everyday I am learning about myself. And the end goal of this odyssey isn’t about landing in any one particular place, it is really about meeting the most important person in my life, me.