We have officially been back "home" for as long as
we were gone. We are both back to work and trying to make the best of our time
off with little bike ride adventures here and there as well as future plans to start
rock climbing again and camping locally more.
However, flashes of our road trip slip in and out of my head
all day long. Every little thing reminds me of something, somewhere. For almost
the first month back I cried every day, mostly when I heard our road trip song,
which by the way they play nonstop on the radio leaving me vulnerable to my
rose colored memories every time.
I think about it every day wishing I could do it all over
again, wishing I could do it forever. I try and be as realistic as possible
because I know it wasn't all cake and lollipops. It was not only a bit of hard
work though a more rewarding kind, I was also very homesick and depressed a lot
of the time.
Somehow through all of that I still want more, in fact it
seems to be all I want. The reason for this is because no matter what, no
matter who you are everybody finds something that the grumbles and shit are
worth; for some people it is their house and their children, for some people
it's their toys and dirt bikes. For me it is travelling.
Nothing gives me more gratification than seeing the world.
It gifts an understanding, compassion, and humbleness that is priceless and
comes from no other activity. Being in nature for me is like drinking water
after a 5k run. It's refreshing! Travelling
is life running down your throat.
Something I found very interesting when I got home was the
actual idea of "home" and "life". I have always had a
skewed view on the idea of "life". I felt like because I was living
the mundane and monotonous life of the average conventional citizen that I was
not really living. I decided to not even call it "life" because if I
wasn't spending the bulk of my time living than that is not what it was. I
choose to refer to it as existing. (I am a prime subject for existential
crisis, I have them hard and often.)
Since we have been back I refer to the road as "my
life". Out of the 23 years and 6 months that I have been alive I somehow
process that those 2 months are "my life" oppose to the other 23 years
and 4 months. It seems that aligns just perfectly with my skewed view on
"life". I consider those 2 months to be the most living I have done
my whole existence, therefore those 2 months are "my life" off there
in the Sierras waiting for me to come back and catch up.
The idea of home, which I have never even thought about
before this has transformed into a whole other idea. "Home" to me is
no longer a place, it is a state of mind. While I was home sick for Florida,
when I got back to Florida I was homesick for the road. It astounds me how
perception can change so quickly.
I've come to the conclusion about it all that the biggest
problem was the cold. I am and always will be a Florida girl which means the
70s are cold to me. My body is acclimatized to that kind of weather, so when it
starts hitting 19 degrees I just can’t take it. The amount of clothing required
in claustrophobia inducing.
While I've been in very hot and humid weather, it has never
hurt me, besides the occasional sun burn. The cold hurts me and there is no
solution. When the sun is blaring on my shoulders I can rub a little sun block
on, but in the cold I found there was no amount of anything I could do to keep
warm. My lack of muscle could be to blame along with my home state.
Regardless, I would do it all over again and again and again
and change nothing because that trip gave me life. The mountain air as dense as
it may be nourished my soul. I have a motivation in me like never before to go
out and do! To experience the world and its wildernesses. To feed my soul with
what is good, pure, and natural and that is exactly what I am going to do.
On to the next...
No comments:
Post a Comment